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AMONG    ENGLISH    HEDGEROWS 


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2ii 

■■  S" 

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H.  j3  — 


An  English  Lane 


AMONG   ENGLISH 
^  HEDGEROWS 


WRITTEN  AND 
ILLUSTRATED  BY 
CLIFTON,  JOHNSON 


WITH   AN   INTRODUCTION 
BY   HAMILTON   W.   MABIE 


THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

New   Tork  igt2 

LONDON:   MACMILLAN  *    CO.   LIMITED 


Copyright,  i8gg 

by  The  Macmillan  Company 

Set  up  and  ekctrotyped 
September,  i8gg 
Reprinted  June,  igoo 
July,  igoi 
4ugust,  igo4 
October,  igo'J 


ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

is  hereby  made  to  The 
New  England  Magazine, 
The  Congre gationalist. 
The  Outlook,  The  Interior, 
and  to  The  New  Eng- 
land Homestead,  in  which 
periodicals  several  chapters 
of  this  book  were  first 
published 


Eleclrotyped 

and 

Printed 

at  the 

Norwood  Press 

Norwood,  Mass, 


■Tr 


oa(~^ 


Contents 


I. 

A  Rural  Village 

Page 

I 

II. 

A  Village  Worthy       . 

24 

III. 

An  Evening  with  a  Nightingale 

42 

IV. 

A  Talk  at  the  Shoemaker's  . 

5» 

V. 

Country  Work  and  Workers 

67 

VI. 

A  Few  Gypsies 

98 

VII. 

Some  English  Pleasures 

106 

VIII. 

A  Springtime  Walk 

119 

IX. 

An  Acquaintance  on  the  Road 

130 

X. 

The  Home  of  the  Pilgrims   . 

144 

XI. 

A  Market  Day  . 

155 

XII. 

A  Night  at  a  Lincolnshire  Inn 

163 

XIII. 

A  Yorkshire  Village    . 

175 

XIV. 

A  Peep  at  the  Gentry 

188 

XV. 

Castles  and  Cathedrals 

203 

XVI. 

A  Glimpse  of  the  Lake  Country 

.     223 

VIU 


Contents 


XVII.  In  Kent  and  Sussex     . 

XVIII.  Round  about  Stonehenge 

XIX.  Life  at  an  Inn    . 

XX.  Country  Churches  and  Chapels 

XXI.  Two  English  Sunday-schools 

XXII.  In  the  Land  of  Lorna  Doone 

XXIII.  The  Home  of  King  Arthur  . 


Page 
236 

246 

262 

281 

301 


List  of  Illustrations 


Page 


An  English  Lane    .... 

.  Frontispiece 

An   English  Village 

2 

Old  Cottages           .... 

3 

Patching  the  Thatch  Roof  of  a  Bam 

5 

The  Harnessmaker 

8 

The  Postman  at  the  Blacksmith's 

1 1 

A   Chat  on  the   Road       .          ,          • 

i6 

A  Funeral      ..... 

•9 

Mr.   Taplow  at  Home    .          .          . 

27 

A  Mug  of  Beer  from  the  Inn 

32 

Mr.   Taplow  digging  the  Suicide's  Grave 

3? 

The  Carrier  and  his  Cart 

37 

On  Sedleigh   Common 

44 

The  Maid  at  the  Inn 

47 

The  Grocer's  Boy            .          .          .          , 

53 

A   Laborer  trimming  a  Hedge 

56 

A  Pauper       ..... 

58 

Returning  from  Work  in  the  Fields  . 

61 

A  Cottage  View  on  Washing  Day    . 

63 

List  of  Illustrations 


The  Farmyard  and  the  Barn 

Unloading  at  the  Rick     . 

Ploughing  with  Oxen 

A  Shepherd  moving  a  Hurdle  Fence 

Women  Workers    . 

Felling  an  Oak 

Eating  "a  Tenner" 

Whetting  their  Scythes    . 

Haymaking    . 

A  Group  of  Hop-pickers 

Gypsy  Peddlers 

Gypsies  on  the   Road 

A  Cricket  Match   . 

Pitching  Quoits 

The  Old  "Workus"      . 

The  Swings  at  a  Fete     . 

Going  Home  from  the  Sale 

Spring  in  a  Village  Field 

Planting 

Work  in  the  Pantry 

A  Farmhouse 

A  Corner  in  a  Farmhouse  Interior 

A  Beehive 

Bawtry  Market  Cross 

Gables  and  Chimneys 

Austerfield   Church 

Doncaster  Marketplace     . 

Scrubbing 

Playing  Hopscotch  in  the  Street 


List  of  Illustrations 


iXl 


A  Group  of  Old  Town  Houses 

A  Cottage  Breakfast 

Ecclesfield      ..... 

Afternoon  in  the  Kitchen 

English  Ricks  .... 

A  Meet  of  the  Hounds  . 

A  Lodge  at  the  Entrance  to  a  Nobleman' 

A  Manor  House     .... 

The  Street  Walls  of  a  Gendeman's  Estate 

In  a  Gentleman's  Park    . 

A  Country  Squire's  Walled  Garden 

An  Ancestral  Hall 

A  Castle  Entrance 

Scarborough  Castle 

Warwick  Casde  from  the  Court  Lawn 

Kenilworth     ..... 

Durham  Cathedral 

Gloucester  Cathedral        .         .  . 

Grasmere        ..... 

A  Mountain  Tarn 

Harvesting  Oats  in  Westmoreland     . 

Washing         ..... 

An  Old  Bridge       .... 

Kit's  Coty  House  .  .  . 

Reaping  Barley        .... 

A  Sussex  Windmill  .  . 

A  Village  Scene     .... 

Stonehenge     ..... 

A  Cottage  Interior  .  . 


Grounds 


Xll 


List  of  Illustrations 


The  Allotments 

A  Country  Inn 

Laborers  Hoeing  Mangels 

A  Village  Lane 

Noon  in  the  Innyard 

A  Well 

The  Entrance  to  a  Churchyard 

A  Rural  Church     . 

A  Village  Chapel  . 

Putting  up  the  Shutters  on  Saturday  Night 

The  Cottage  Doorway  and  its  Adjuncts     . 

On  the  Way  to  Sunday-school  by  a  Field-path 

A  Stile 

June  Roses    ...... 

Doone  Valley  ..... 

John  Ridd's  Waterslide   .... 

The  Bridge  at  the  Entrance  to  Doone  Valley 
A  Devon  Farm  Family  .... 

A  Blind  Beggar  and  his  Companion 
Clovelly         ...... 

A  Village  in  Cornwall    .... 

The  Remains  of  King  Arthur's  Castle 
Tintagel  Church     ..... 

An  English  Wood  .... 


Introduction 

Irving's  "  Sketch  Book  "  was  one  of  the  first  success- 
ful essays  made  on  this  continent  in  the  field  of  litera- 
ture, and  its  charm  lay  quite  as  much  in  its  choice  of 
themes  as  in  its  felicity  of  style.  The  new  country 
had  cut  the  political  ties  which  united  it  with  the  old 
country,  and  was  on  the  point  of  asserting  its  intel- 
lectual independence.  Emerson's  striking  address  on 
The  American  Scholar,  which  Dr.  Holmes  has  very 
happily  called  "  our  declaration  of  intellectual  inde- 
pendence," was  not  delivered  until  1832;  but  that 
independence  was  really  achieved  by  Irving,  Bryant, 
and  Cooper  more  than  a  decade  earlier.  The  new 
nation  began  then  to  turn  its  gaze  away  from  Europe 
toward  its  own  future ;  but  in  thus  formally  assert- 
ing its  right  to  live  by  its  own  insight  and  for  its  own 
aims,  it  was  severing  neither  the  racial  nor  the  spiritual 
ties  which  bound  it  to  the  mother  country ;  in  assum- 
ing the  privileges  of  an  independent  career,  it  was  put- 
ting itself  in  position  to  enjoy  and  love  the  older  world 
in  a  nobler  fashion. 


xiv  Introduction 

In  that  old  world  all  the  roots  of  its  life  were 
planted ;  and  when  the  sights  and  sounds  of  English 
landscape  and  city  street  began  to  fade  from  the  memo- 
ries of  living  men,  the  skill  of  the  writer  who  could 
recall  those  vanishing  scenes  found  a  recognition  which 
had  in  it  a  touch  of  personal  tenderness  for  the  old 
places  and  the  old  days.  There  is  a  race  memory  as 
well  as  an  individual  memory,  and  the  country  in 
which  a  race  has  once  lived,  whose  fields  it  has  tilled, 
and  whose  cities  it  has  built,  can  never  be  quite  un- 
familiar to  the  children  of  its  makers.  When  Irving 
recalled  the  old-time  habits  and  places  he  touched  a 
chord  which  instantly  responded ;  for  Westminster 
Abbey  and  Stratford-on-Avon  and  the  peal  of  Christ- 
mas bells  and  the  good  cheer  of  Christmastide  in  hall 
and  cottage  were  recollections  of  childhood  to  the  peo- 
ple of  English  descent  on  this  side  the  sea. 

And  from  that  day  to  this  the  writers  who  have 
known  and  loved  the  ripe  beauty  and  the  rich  life  of 
England  have  never  lacked  readers.  Both  writers  and 
readers  have  often  been  critical  of  their  kin  beyond 
seas,  and  have  not  been  slow  to  speak  out  of  a  frank 
mind  the  things  which  make  for  honesty  if  not  for 
peace ;  but  below  the  current  of  sharp  speech  there 
has  always  been  a  deep  feeling  of  kinship.  Americans 
are  quick  to  feel  the  charm  of  the  English  country, 
not  only  because  it  is  so  unlike  their  own,  but  because 


Introduction  jeV' 

it  once  was  their  own.  It  is  still,  as  one  of  the  truest 
literary  artists  who  has  ever  described  it  has  happily 
called  it,  Our  Old  Home. 

And  this  home  is  nowhere  more  homelike  than  in 
its  quiet  roads  and  rural  villages.  Mr.  Johnson  has 
given  us  the  keynote  of  his  book  in  the  words  of  his 
earliest  predecessor  in  this  charming  field :  the  stran- 
ger who  would  form  a  correct  opinion  of  English  char- 
acter, wrote  Irving,  "  must  go  forth  into  the  country ; 
he  must  sojourn  in  villages  and  hamlets ;  ...  he  must 
wander  through  parks  and  gardens ;  along  hedges  and 
green  lanes ;  he  must  loiter  about  country  churches ; 
and  cope  with  people  in  all  their  conditions,  and  all 
their  habits  and  humors."  So  brief  has  been  our 
history  that  there  still  lives  in  Stratford,  or  did  live 
until  very  recently,  an  old  man  who  recalled  Irving's 
visits  to  his  father  in  the  days  before  the  charming 
account  of  Shakespeare's  birthplace  had  set  the  tide 
of  travel  flowing  through  Warwickshire.  So  long,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  the  story  of  man's  life  in  England 
that  traces  of  successive  civilizations  are  rarely  out  of 
sight,  and  a  thousand  years  is  as  a  day  in  the  memory 
of  a  race  which  was  afield  and  at  work  when  Christianity 
was  making  its  way  through  western  Europe.  It  is  the 
ripeness  of  forgotten  countries  which  gives  the  English 
landscape  its  rich  and  characteristic  charm  ;  the  charm 
of  ancient  repose,  of  deep  and  tranquil  beauty,  of  long- 


xvi  Introduction 

continued  and  loving  care  of  soil  and  tree  and  vine. 
Men  have  put  their  vitaHty  into  those  sweeping 
meadows  and  gently  sloping  hills  for  so  many  gen- 
erations that  something  humanizing  has  passed  into 
the  earth  and  made  it  companionable. 

And  what  men  could  not  do  the  climate,  generous 
in  the  elements  of  fertility,  has  done.  "  England  is 
like  the  margin  of  a  spring-run,  near  its  source,"  writes 
Mr.  Burroughs  in  his  discriminating  study  of  the 
English  landscape;  "always  green,  always  cool, always 
moist,  comparatively  free  from  frost  in  winter  and  from 
drought  in  summer.  .  .  .  The  spirit  of  gentle,  fer- 
tilizing summer  rain  perhaps  never  took  such  tangi- 
ble and  topographical  form  before.  Cloud-evolved, 
cloud-enveloped,  cloud-protected,  it  fills  the  eye  of  the 
American  traveller  with  a  vision  of  greenness  such  as 
he  has  never  before  dreamed  of;  a  greenness  born  of 
perpetual  May,  tender,  untarnished,  ever  renewed,  and 
as  uniform  and  all-pervading  as  the  raindrops  that  fall, 
covering  mountain,  cliff,  and  vale  aHke." 

This  quality  of  repose  and  ripeness,  —  as  if  nothing 
had  been  made,  but  everything  had  grown  with  as  much 
indifference  to  the  flight  of  time  as  the  embowering  ivy 
and  the  deep  grasses  suggest,  —  is  on  the  long  lanes 
and  the  tranquil  villages.  Mr.  Johnson's  title  could 
hardly  have  been  chosen  more  happily  ;  for  it  is  among 
the  hedgerows  that  one  sees  and  hears  the  most  char- 


Introduction  xvii 

acterlstic  beauty  of  England.  A  long  walk  between 
the  hedges,  across  wide  meadows,  behind  clusters  of 
village  homes,  under  wide-spreading  trees,  puts  one  in 
the  way  of  intimacy  with  the  country  and  the  people. 
If  it  is  at  dusk,  in  the  early  summer,  there  comes  the 
passionate  note  of  the  nightingale  which  always  arrests 
one  with  a  sense  of  its  pathos  as  if  it  had  never  been 
heard  before ;  if  it  is  at  noonday,  from  some  neighbor- 
ing meadow  the  lark  swiftly  rises  into  those  soft  skies 
from  which  its  notes  will  soon  fall  like  rain.  In  the 
long  village  street  there  has  been  time  to  ripen  all 
manner  of  quaint  and  individual  folk ;  the  people 
whom  Mr.  Hardy  has  described  with  such  freshness 
and  fidelity  in  those  classics  of  English  rural  life 
"  Under  the  Greenwood  Tree,"  "  The  Woodlanders," 
and  "  Far  from  the  Madding  Crowd."  Into  this  world, 
so  unlike  our  own  and  yet  so  much  akin  to  ours,  Mr. 
Johnson  has  gone  with  a  friendly  eye,  a  hearty  sym- 
pathy, and  a  very  intelligent  camera ;  and  his  record 
betrays  at  all  points  that  love  of  his  field  and  his  sub- 
jects which  is  the  prime  characteristic  of  the  successful 
painter  of  rural  life  and  country  folk. 

HAMILTON   WRIGHT   MABIE. 


Among   English   Hedgerows 


A    RURAL    VILLAGE 


IT  was  the  first  week  in  April  that  I  reached  Eng- 
land. I  came  thus  early  in  the  season  that  I 
might  be  sure  to  see  Nature  unfolding  her  green- 
ery and  scattering  her  blossoms  over  the  fields  and 
woodlands  from  the  very  beginning.  I  did  not  linger 
in  the  town  where  I  landed,  but  went  at  once  inland 
to  a  little  village  in  one  of  the  southern  counties  which 
I  shall  call  Sedleigh.  There  I  made  my  home  for 
several  weeks. 

The  change  from  the  bleakness  of  America  just 
emerging  from  the  frosts  and  snows  of  winter  when  I 
left  it  and  from  the  tossing  seas  to  the  tranquil  fresh- 
ness of  the  English  spring  was  a  delightful  one.  The 
weather  was  mild,  the  grass  was  green,  and  in  shel- 
tered nooks  the  first  flowers  were  opening  their  eyes. 
But,  aside  from  this  spring  awakening  of  buds  and 
leafage  which  would  be  beautiful  anywhere,  the  coun- 
try had  a  gentleness  of  aspect  that  was  new  to  me.     It 


2  Among  English   Hedgerows 

was  astonishing  how  velvety  the  grass-fields  all  looked, 
and  how  soft  and  rounded  all  the  outlines  of  the  land- 
scape were.      In  part  this  gentleness  comes  from  the 


An  English  Village 

kindly  climate  and  the  easy  decay  of  the  chalky, 
underlying  rock,  but  a  considerable  fraction  of  the 
country's  pastoral  mellowness  is  the  result  of  the  long 
subjection  of  the  earth  to  the  hand  of  man.  Spade 
and  plough  have  been  chastening  the  land  and  wear- 
ing away  its  roughnesses  for  centuries  past. 

The  village  I  was  in  seemed  to  me  the  prettiest  place 
imaginable.     It  was  like  a  story-book  made  real.     The 


A  Rural  Village  j 

trees,  the  hedges,  the  high  stone  walls,  and  the  old 
houses  with  their  queer  little  windows  and  their  roofs 
of  tile  and  thatch  were  all  charming.  I  had  not 
thought  human  beings  could  build  a  collection  of 
houses  so  delightfully  and  naturally   picturesque. 

Most  of  the  homes  of  the  hamlet  were  dotted  thickly 
along  a  single,  narrow,  irregular  street.  Others  were 
scattered  at  lengthening  intervals  on  the  lanes  that 
wandered   away   into  the   fields.      The  village's  chief 


Old  Cottages 


4  Among  English  Hedgerows 

highway  had  a  stone-paved  walk  bordering  one  side, 
but  the  walk  had  such  a  cobbly  roughness  that  it  was 
like  doing  penance  to  travel  on  it,  and,  except  in  wet 
weather,  every  one  kept  to  the  middle  of  the  road. 
Some  of  the  houses  hugged  the  street  so  closely  that 
their  doors  opened  directly  on  it  with  no  space  inter- 
vening. As  a  rule,  however,  there  were  a  few  yards  of 
separation,  and  a  tidy  walk  led  to  the  house  entrance 
from  the  gateway  in  the  substantial  wall  or  fence  that 
shut  the  home  domain  away  from  the  street.  Along 
the  paths  and  housewalks  were  many  flowers  and  shrubs 
and  vines.  The  tradespeople  usually  allowed  them- 
selves the  luxury  of  a  bit  of  lawn  before  their  dwell- 
ings, but  about  the  cottages  of  the  laborers  all  the 
spare  space,  except  for  the  narrow  strips  reserved  for 
flowers,  was  spaded  up  and  planted  to  vegetables. 

The  Sedleigh  roofs  were  in  the  majority  of  cases 
tiled,  but  there  were  still  many  of  old-fashioned  thatch. 
The  latter  were  the  more  attractive,  for  they  had  softer 
outlines,  and  were,  in  tone  and  form,  very  like  a 
growth  of  nature.  When  a  building  is  first  thatched, 
the  straw  of  the  roof  has  a  thickness  of  eight  or  ten 
inches,  but  after  this  first  coat  gets  leaky  fresh  thatch 
is  put  on  over  the  old,  and  in  spite  of  a  certain  amount 
of  trimming  the  roof  gradually  grows  more  ponderous. 
An  old  roof  a  foot  and  a  half  or  two  feet  thick  is 
nothing  uncommon.     The  little  dormer  windows  keep 


A  Rural  Village 


Patching  the  Thatch  Roof  of  a  Barn 

receding  with  the  successive  thatchings  till  they  are 
almost  hidden  from  sight.  The  straw  is  laid  very 
evenlv,  and  the  only  binding  that  shows  is  some 
wooden  thongs  along  the  eaves  and  the  ridge.      On 


6  Among  English  Hedgerows 

many  buildings  the  thatch  had  been  so  long  unre- 
newed that  it  was  mouldy,  caked,  and  ragged,  and 
was  covered  in  its  more  shadowed  parts  with  a  thick 
growth  of  moss,  variegated  with  sproutings  of  weeds 
and  grasses. 

In  noticing  the  Sedleigh  village  houses,  and  in- 
deed those  everywhere  in  Britain,  the  thing  that 
impressed  me  most  in  the  architecture  as  compared 
with  that  in  America  was  its  air  of  stability.  What 
the  English  build  they  build  to  last.  Houses  two  or 
three  hundred  years  old  are  to  be  found  in  every 
village,  and  their  heavy  walls  of  masonry  seem  likely 
to  endure  forever.  The  same  sturdiness  of  construc- 
tion characterizes  the  churches  and  other  public  build- 
ings of  England.  You  find  it,  too,  in  the  bridges  across 
the  rivers  —  even  in  those  over  the  little  brooks  in 
the  fields ;  they  every  one  span  the  streams  in  strong, 
graceful  arches  of  brick  or  stone.  For  the  most  part 
the  architecture  is  tastefully  simple  and  takes  its  place 
in  the  landscape  with  little  or  no  sense  of  artificiality. 
Yet  there  were  exceptions.  Some  of  the  more  modern 
of  the  Sedleigh  houses  were  stiff  and  bare  and  even 
ugly,  though  fortunately  there  were  not  enough  of 
these  to  mar  the  general  harmony  and  repose. 

The  average  cottage  interior  is  dismally  shabby  and 
its  furnishings  meagre.  The  rooms  at  the  disposal 
of  any  one  family  are  few  and  small,  and  you  find  in 


A  Rural  Village  7 

the  best  of  them  little  beyond  the  bare  necessities 
for  housekeeping  of  the  most  primitive  sort.  The 
kitchen  is  naturally  the  heart  of  the  home.  It  is 
the  one  living-room.  Here  the  family  eat,  do  all 
their  work,  and  entertain  their  visitors.  It  has  a 
rough  floor  of  stone  or  brick,  and  its  ceiling  is  sim- 
ply the  boards  and  beams  of  the  chamber  floor  above. 
The  feature  that  does  most  to  relieve  its  air  of  pov- 
erty is  a  display  of  crockery  always  kept  in  full  sight 
on  open  shelves  ;  and  this  array  of  tableware  receives 
its  crowning  touch  in  a  row  of  mugs  and  pitchers 
hung  on  nails  driven  into  a  beam  just  above.  You 
wonder  that  there  should  be  so  many  of  these  latter 
articles,  but  it  seems  to  be  a  point  of  pride  among 
housewives  to  have  plenty  of  mugs  and  pitchers,  what- 
ever else  they  lack. 

The  cottage  chimney  is  pretty  sure  to  be  of  the 
broad,  old-fashioned  type  that  expands  below  into  a 
wide,  deep  fireplace.  You  find  these  antiquated  fire- 
places everywhere,  only  they  have  been  adapted  to 
modern  requirements  by  filling  in  the  lower  half  with 
a  sort  of  combination  stove  and  grate.  Stoves  of  the 
American  pattern  are  a  rarity,  and  these  rude  grates, 
choking  the  mouths  of  the  old  chimneys,  are  almost 
universal.  They  did  not  seem,  from  my  point  of 
view,  to  be  very  serviceable  for  either  heat  or  cook- 
ing purposes,  but  they  were  cheerful.     The  glow  of 


8  Among  English   Hedgerows 

the  fire  was  always  in  sight,  and  there  was  something 
very  pleasant  about  a  cottage  kitchen  on  the  edge  of 


The  Harnessmaker 


evening,  with  the  light  flickering  out  from  the  grate 
into  the  semi-gloom  of  the  room. 

Though  English  houses  are  practically  all  of  brick  or 
stone  and  the  walls  of  the  older  ones  often  nearly  two 


A  Rural  Village  9 

feet  thick,  they  are  not  as  tight  and  warm  as  the  average 
house  in  America.  The  frosts  gain  easy  access,  and 
there  is  a  good  deal  of  winter  discomfort  in  the  hum- 
bler houses. 

The  English  have  a  conundrum  which  questions, 
"  What  color  is  the  grass  when  the  snow  is  on  it  ?  " 

The  correct  answer  is,  "  Just  the  same  color  it  is 
in  summer." 

They  know  nothing  of  the  faded  browns  and  yellows 
with  which  we  are  familiar  in  the  late  autumn  and 
early  spring.  Sharp  freezing  weather  is  rare,  and  the 
grass  never  loses  its  green.  When  they  have  snow, 
it  only  lasts  a  few  days  as  a  rule,  and  If  there  comes 
a  whole  week  in  which  the  ponds  are  frozen  so  that  the 
ice  will  bear  a  person's  weight,  the  winter  is  thought  to 
be  remarkably  cold.  Yet,  at  its  mildest,  the  season  has 
a  damp  chilliness  that  makes  it  much  more  disagreeable 
than  our  dryer,  colder  weather ;  and  no  one  loves  it. 

The  gentry  had  only  two  representatives  in  Sed- 
leigh, —  the  vicar  and  a  retired  banker.  The  banker's 
house  had  a  long  frontage  on  the  chief  street,  while 
the  vicarage  was  just  across  the  tiny  village  green 
adjoining  the  quiet  old  church.  Of  tradespeople  the 
community  had  its  full  complement.  There  were  two 
shops  that  sold  about  everything  one  of  our  country 
stores  would,  and  there  was  a  blacksmith's  shop,  a 
harnessmaker's  shop,  a  shoemaker's  shop,  a  carpenter's 


lo  Among  English  Hedgerows 

shop,  a  plumber's  shop,  a  butcher's  shop,  a  baker's 
shop,  and  one  or  two  little  shops  where  sweets  and 
ginger  beer  were  for  sale.  Last  and  busiest  of  all, 
there  were  three  drinking-places,  one  of  them  known 
as  a  hotel,  and  the  other  two  as  inns,  while  all  three 
had  the  general  title  of  "  publics  "  or  "  pubs." 

Nearly  every  one  on  Sedleigh  street  had  one  or  two 
black  pigs  housed  in  a  little  pen  in  the  garden,  though 
in  some  cases  the  pigs  were  allowed  the  run  of  a  grass- 
field.  They  had  good  care,  and  the  children  associated 
with  them  and  petted  them  quite  like  members  of 
the  family.  The  boys  would  bring  home  sacks  of 
leaves  from  a  near  beech  wood  for  their  bedding  and 
gather  weeds  along  the  roadside  for  them  to  eat.  I 
often  saw  the  pigs  driven  through  the  streets,  or  their 
bloody  corpses  borne  along  on  a  litter  on  the  way  to 
the  butcher's  shop. 

One  evening  I  saw  a  little  group  of  children  playing 
at  pig-killing.  They  had  a  rope  tied  around  one  boy's 
hind  leg,  and  he  was  scrambling  about  on  hands  and 
knees  and  squealing  very  naturally.  They  had  a  litter, 
a  pan,  wooden  saws,  and  knives,  and  it  was  all  very 
realistically  horrible. 

Almost  every  English  village  has  an  idiot  among  its 
inhabitants.  Sedleigh  had  two.  One  was  a  man  of 
middle  age  named  Johnny  Phipps.  He  was  a  queer, 
short-stepping  man,  always  stubbing  along  rather  has- 


A  Rural  Village  13 

tily  in  his  vacant  way  as  if  intent  on  business.  He 
spent  much  of  his  time  on  Sedleigh  Common,  where 
he  knocked  stumps  to  pieces  with  his  pickaxe  ;  later  he 
brought  the  chips  down  the  hill  to  his  home  in  a  bag. 

The  other  weak-minded  one  was  a  young  girl  with  a 
great  neck  and  a  crude-featured,  coarse,  red  face.  She 
could  not  talk  plainly,  and  she  could  learn  nothing,  but 
she  liked  to  be  with  the  other  children  at  school.  There 
she  would  sit  among  the  infants  and  imitate  their  mo- 
tions and  mumble  indistinctly  when  they  recited. 

Caste  feeling  is  marked  even  in  the  smallest  villages. 
Lines  are  sharply  drawn  between  the  different  grades 
of  society,  and  there  is  so  much  class  jealousy  and 
isolation  that  the  social  activities  of  a  community,  as 
a  whole,  are  apt  to  be  halting  or  stagnant.  Among 
people  on  the  same  level  cliques  and  gossip  and  more 
or  less  formidable  animosities  are  common.  For  in- 
stance, certain  laborers'  wives  will  for  a  while  get  into 
the  habit  of  being  particularly  friendly  with  each  other. 
They  will  pop  into  each  other's  houses  at  all  hours. 
If  they  want  a  pinch  of  salt,  they  run  for  that,  or  a  loaf 
of  bread,  or  a  little  tea,  they  run  for  that.  Perhaps 
they  sit  and  talk  in  the  kitchen  for  half  the  morning, 
and  it  is  very  likely  noon  before  the  visitor  bethinks 
herself  she  must  go  home  to  get  dinner.  So  they  get 
to  know  too  much,  in  time,  and  a  secret  is  let  out. 
Then  there  is  a  row,  and  they  call  each  other  every- 


14  Among  English  Hedgerows 

thing  but  their  Christian  names,  and  keep  themselves 
to  themselves  and  won't  speak  when  they  meet.  But 
presently  the  trouble  fades,  and  they  are  "  as  big  friends 
and  as  big  fools  "  as  ever. 

The  English,  when  they  want  to  travel  on  foot  any- 
where—  to  a  neighbor's,  or  to  adjoining  villages  —  are 
apt  to  go,  not  by  road,  but  by  the  footpaths.  These 
tiny  paths  ramble  all  about  through  grass-land  and 
ploughed  fields,  across  wheat  patches,  and  hop  gardens 
—  everywhere.  They  may  go  straight  down  the  middle 
of  a  field,  cut  across  it  diagonally,  merely  clip  a  corner, 
or  take  off  a  narrow  slice  by  keeping  all  the  way  along 
its  borders  next  a  hedge.  When  the  field  is  ploughed 
the  path  is  usually  turned  under  and  has  to  be  trodden 
anew. 

On  all  these  paths  time  has  given  the  people  a 
right  of  way,  and  it  is  useless  trying  to  force  them 
out  of  one.  The  attempt  has  sometimes  been  made, 
but  the  people  will  tear  down  obstructions  and  fight 
for  their  right  if  need  be,  and  they  always  have  the 
support  of  the  courts. 

England  has  very  little  forest  land ;  in  some  coun- 
tiec  almost  none.  About  Sedleigh  there  were  fre- 
quent woods  of  a  few  acres  each  on  the  steep  hillsides, 
and  occasional  smaller  woods  on  the  levels,  while  the 
fine  mansions  had  many  little  patches  and  avenues  of 
great  trees  on  their  grounds. 


A  Rural  Village  15 

A  landscape  as  seen  from  a  hill  is  all  checkered 
with  many-shaped  fields  of  varied  greens  and  browns. 
In  color  it  impresses  one  as  several  shades  darker  than 
the  American  landscape.  The  trees,  in  particular,  as 
compared  with  ours,  are  full-foliaged,  compact,  and 
deep-tinted.  Everywhere  are  the  tangled  lines  of  the 
hedges,  the  thin,  dusty  stripes  of  the  footpaths,  and 
the  wider,  more  regular  lines  of  the  roadways.  A 
continuous  bank,  two  feet  or  more  high,  skirts  the 
highways  on  each  side.  Hedges  crown  the  banks, 
and  sprout  in  such  thick  tangled  growth,  that  one 
can  rarely  find  a  gap  he  could  push  through  with 
any  comfort.  Bank  and  hedge  together  come  up 
shoulder  high  at  the  lowest,  and  you  feel  much  shut 
in  when  you  walk. " 

One  thing  that  impresses  an  American  is  the  heavy 
build  of  English  vehicles.  The  wheels  are  broad- 
tired,  the  hubs  large,  and  a  sturdiness  right  through 
is  characteristic  of  them  that  comes  close  to  the  borders 
of  clumsiness.  Two-wheeled  carts  are  the  commonest 
vehicles,  whether  for  farm  work  or  for  light  driving. 
When  one  team  meets  another,  both  turn  to  the  left, 
but  two  people  who  meet  on  foot  will  each  keep  to 
the  right.  The  custom  that  teams  have  of  turning  to 
the  left,  I  was  told,  was  good  sense,  in  that  the  driver, 
who  sits  on  the  right-hand  side  just  as  with  us,  is 
better  enabled  to  watch  his  wheels,  and  see  that  they 


i6 


Among  English   Hedgerows 


do  not  collide  with  those  of  the  teams  met.  In  the 
rugged  regions  of  the  Black  Forest  in  Germany,  teams 
turn  to  the  right  as  they  do  in  America  ;  and  there 
they  reason  that  it  is  better  so  because  each  man  can 


A  Chat  on  the  Road 

thus  watch  his  outside  wheels  and  see  that  they  do  not 
go  over  a  precipice.  The  turning  of  foot-people  to 
the  right  is  a  custom  descended  from  less-civilized 
times  when  every  gentleman  carried  a  sword.  Keep- 
ing to  the  right  left  his  sword-arm  freer  for  offence 
or  defence,  as  the  case  might  be. 

One  day  I  came  across  the  village  carpenter  at  work 
in   his  garden  and   stopped   to   chat  with   him.     He 


A  Rural  Village  17 

was  wearing  his  white  apron.  All  the  tradespeople 
wear  aprons,  and  they  never  trouble  to  take  them  off 
while  they  are  about  home  or  on  the  village  streets. 
Like  all  English  gardens,  the  plot  the  carpenter  was 
working  in  was  very  tidy  and  attractive.  Every  inch 
was  dug  over  and  utilized,  except  for  the  narrow  paths, 
some  of  greensward,  some  of  gravel.  The  carpenter's 
shop  was  close  by,  at  one  side  of  his  house.  It  was 
a  queer,  shackly  old  place,  with  its  front  set  half  full 
of  glass.  There  was  litter  all  about,  and  there  was 
litter  inside  ten  feet  deep.  Elbow  room  in  the  crowded 
interior  seemed  to  be  entirely  lacking. 

Amongst  the  rest  of  the  lumber  here  stored  was 
a  full  supply  of  material  for  coffins.  Making  coffins 
for  the  village  dead  is  one  of  the  specialties  of  the 
English  country  carpenter.  Only  one  style  of  coffin 
is  in  ordinary  use.  It  is  of  oiled  elm  studded  all 
around  the  edges  and  borders  of  the  lid  with  black- 
headed  nails.  It  has  no  further  ornament  save  the 
six  black  handles,  one  on  each  end  and  two  on  each 
side,  and  a  thin  metal  plate  on  top  with  the  name  of 
the  deceased  painted  on  it.  The  lid  is  without  glass, 
and  the  coffin  is  not  enclosed  in  another  box.  Show 
or  expense  are  felt  by  the  English  to  be  out  of  place, 
and  they  think  it  best  that  dust  should  return  to 
dust  quickly  rather  than  lingeringly.  The  coffins  are 
of  the  broad-shouldered  "  coffin  shape,"  not  casket 
c 


1 8  Among  English  Hedgerows 

shaped,  as  with  us.  They  are  padded,  and  Hned  with 
thin  caHco.  The  funeral  furnishings  of  the  gentry 
are  likewise  very  simple,  only  their  coffins  are  made 
of  oak  and  have  fittings  of  brass.  Children's  coffins 
are  covered  with  blue  cloth  and  have  tin  handles  that 
shine  like  silver. 

When  a  person  dies,  the  church  bell  tolls  at  in- 
tervals of  five  minutes,  one,  two,  or  three  strokes,  for 
an  hour.  One  stroke  means  a  child,  two  a  woman, 
three  a  man.  The  tolling  is  repeated  at  the  time  of 
the  funeral,  and  is  a  signal  for  the  unoccupied  women 
and  children  of  the  village  to  gather  near  the  church 
gate  to  look  at  the  procession  that  will  presently 
appear. 

It  is  the  custom  after  a  body  has  been  laid  in  the 
coffin  at  the  home  to  invite  the  neighbors  in  to  see 
it.  This  is  a  real  gratification  to  most  of  the  visitors, 
and  they  comment  and  say  to  the  mourning  house- 
hold, "  How  nice  the  corpse  looks." 

No  service  is  held  at  the  house,  but  only  in  the 
church  and  at  the  grave.  Laborers  at  a  funeral  wear 
white  smocks,  often  handsomely  stitched  and  gathered 
about  the  shoulders.  These  long,  blouse-like  garments 
are  picturesque  and  serviceable.  They  were  once  uni- 
versal in  the  fields,  but  few  men  wear  them  about 
their  work  now.  A  long  jacket  called  a  "  slop  "  and 
other  nondescript  garments  have  taken  their  place.    On 


A  Funeral 


A  Rural  Village  2i 

the  Sunday  following  a  funeral  the  bearers  and  relatives 
of  the  deceased  attend  church  in  a  body.  Aside  from 
the  expense  of  the  coffin  there  is  the  parson's  fee  and 
the  fee  for  the  gravedigger.  If  a  headstone  is  put  up, 
there  is  an  added  fee  of  a  sovereign,  and  practically 
none  but  the  upper  classes  mark  their  graves. 

I  found  lodging  while  in  Sedleigh  at  the  single  small 
hotel  known  as  "  The  Black  Stag."  Its  chief  business 
was  the  selling  of  drink.  There  were  people  at  the  bar 
talking,  smoking,  and  drinking  most  of  the  time,  and 
a  crowd  gathered  in  the  taproom  every  evening. 
Nearly  every  one  drinks  in  such  a  place  as  Sedleigh. 
Even  the  women  and  children  are  included  among  the 
drinkers,  though  they  take  only  the  lighter  liquors  as 
a  rule.  "  I  drinks,"  said  Olive,  the  Black  Stag  maid, 
"but  I  don't  get  tight.  I  don't  take  rum.  Me  and 
the  other  girls  just  drinks  stout."  Stout  is  a  mild 
liquor  made  from  burnt  malt. 

Aside  from  this  maid  the  hotel  family  consisted  of 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Newtley  and  two  daughters,  Beatty  and 
Daisy.  Daisy  was  a  schoolgirl  of  eleven.  She  was 
pretty,  modest,  and  attractive.  When  spoken  to  by 
a  stranger,  she  seemed  half  frightened,  and  hesitated 
for  an  answer  as  if  almost  minded  to  run  away.  In 
two  years  she  would  be  through  with  school  and  would 
be  waiting  on  the  bar. 

Beatty  was  well  along  in  her  teens  and  was  an  expert 


22  Among  English  Hedgerows 

barmaid.  It  was  during  my  stay  that  she  and  several 
other  village  girls  drove  to  the  nearest  large  town  with 
the  vicar,  to  be  confirmed.  They  all  wore  white  dresses, 
white  gloves,  and  little  white  lace  caps,  with  streamers 
of  the  same  material.  It  was  a  great  occasion  and 
worried  Beatty  half  sick.  To  prepare  for  confirma- 
tion she  had  to  do  a  lot  of  Bible  study,  and  hunt 
up  answers  to  theological  questions  propounded  by 
the  vicar.  One  question  was,  "  What  is  the  backbone 
of  the  catechism  ? "  The  family  hunted  the  Bible 
through,  but  had  no  better  idea  of  what  this  back- 
bone was  than  they  had  before. 

Mrs.  Newtley  was  usually  to  be  found  working  in 
the  kitchen,  though  she  helped  Beatty  more  or  less 
at  the  bar.  Mr.  Newtley's  headquarters  were  at  the 
stable.  He  took  care  of  such  teams  as  stopped, 
worked  in  the  garden,  and  did  a  good  amount  of 
loafing  and  chaffing  with  friends  and  customers.  But 
in  the  busy  hours  of  the  evening  he  presided  behind 
the  bar,  with  Beatty  for  assistant. 

Some  "  cheap-Jacks "  came  one  afternoon  to  Sed- 
leigh  and  took  possession  of  one  end  of  the  hotel 
barn.  They  put  up  a  rough  counter,  and  on  that, 
and  the  walls  round  about,  which  they  drove  full  of 
nails,  they  made  as  enticing  a  display  of  their  goods 
as  was  possible.  They  had  all  sorts  of  household 
wares  and  knickknacks,  and  every  article  was  priced 


A  Rural  Village  23 

at  sixpence  ha'penny.  They  had  posters  in  colors 
to  tack  up  on  the  barn  doors,  and  circulars  for  dis- 
tribution. The  children  from  the  street  and  the 
school  all  crowded  around  the  tables  as  soon  as  the 
cheap-Jacks  arrived,  and  viewed  operations  with  great 
interest,  and  every  child  had  to  have  a  circular  to 
take  home.  The  two  young  men  in  charge  kept  up 
a  constant  run  of  small  talk  with  each  other  and  the 
onlookers  as  they  worked. 

Such  bazaars  as  this  are  common.  They  move 
from  village  to  village,  and  stop  in  each  place  about  a 
week.  This  one  called  itself,  "  The  Mammoth  Eng- 
lish and  American  Trading  Corporation,"  a  name  that 
was  mostly  wind ;  for  the  goods,  I  was  told,  were 
nearly  all  made  by  unpaid  convict  labor  in  Germany. 

The  Jacks  spent  the  larger  part  of  their  time  dur- 
ing the  day  in  loafing.  Customers  came  mostly  in 
the  evening.  Then  the  space  in  front  of  the  counters 
was  crowded,  flaring  lights  hung  here  and  there,  and 
a  bevy  of  village  lads  were  chasing  around  the  hard 
earth  yard.  Several  young  men  cracking  their  rough 
jokes  hung  about  the  doorway,  and  heads  of  families 
gathered  seriously  before  the  counter  and  spent  a  great 
deal  of  time  looking  and  thinking  before  they  bought. 


II 


A    VILLAGE    WORTHY 

JN  my  stay  in  Sedleigh  I  became  very  well 
acquainted  with  the  sexton  of  the  established 
church.  He  was  an  old  gentleman  named 
Taplow  who  had  served  twenty  years  in  London 
as  a  policeman  and  was  now  a  pensioner.  He  had 
a  little  house  on  the  other  side  of  the  street  a  short 
distance  from  my  hotel. 

One  evening  when  I  called  I  found  Mr.  Taplow 
with  his  elbows  on  the  small  table  in  the  centre  of  his 
kitchen,  reading  a  circular  left  by  a  travelling  doctor. 
He  passed  the  circular  to  me  with  the  remark  that 
this  doctor  could  cure  "  about  everything  but  the 
wagging  of  a  woman's  tongue." 

"  I  told  my  wife  that,"  said  he,  "just  before  you 
come  in,  and  it  got  me  into  trouble  in  no  time." 

Mr.  Taplow  was  always  getting  off  some  joke  of 
this  nature.  He  was  a  stout,  slow  old  gentleman  with 
aged  blue  eyes,  a  soggy  nose,  and  a  bald  head  fringed 
round  the  edges  with  wisps  of  gray  hair.     His  broad 

24 


A  Village  Worthy  25 

face  was  framed  with  a  semicircle  of  beard  growing  in 
a  thin  line  far  back  under  his  chin.  He  laughed  a 
great  deal,  and  when  he  laughed,  he  laughed  all  over. 
It  was  an  eruptive,  wheezing,  gurgling  sort  of  a  laugh 
that  was  almost  coughing.  But  he  was  a  different 
sort  of  man  when  performing  his  duties  as  sexton  at 
the  church.  At  such  times  no  official  could  be  more 
staid  and  solemn. 

The  Taplow  kitchen  was  a  mere  box  of  a  room  with 
two  of  the  prettiest  windows  imaginable.  One  was 
very  wide  and  deep,  with  dainty  square  panes,  and  the 
broad  sill  was  set  full  of  plants.  The  other  window 
was  only  less  pretty  because  it  was  smaller.  At  one 
side  of  the  room  was  a  dresser  full  of  old  fashioned 
dishes,  and  next  it  a  tall  clock ;  and  with  the  numer- 
ous other  furnishings,  the  little  room  was  very  much 
crowded. 

From  a  black  beam  which  crossed  the  ceiling  was 
suspended  a  row  of  ten  large  handbells.  These  ran 
from  low  tones  to  high  like  a  scale  of  music,  and  Mr. 
Taplow  struck  them  with  his  cane  to  show  me  that  one 
could  play  tunes  on  them  if  he  only  knew  how. 

Five  men  rang  the  chimes  at  the  village  church,  and 
this  row  of  bells  was  for  their  use  when  at  Christmas- 
time they  made  a  tour  of  the  parish  to  collect  their  rates. 
Armed  with  the  bells,  one  in  each  hand,  the  five  men 
went  the  Christmas  rounds,  visiting  in  turn  the  homes 


26  Among  English  Hedgerows 

of  the  subscribers  to  their  rates,  and  in  front  of  every 
house-door  rang  on  the  bells  the  various  tunes  they 
had  been  practising  for  two  or  three  weeks  beforehand. 
They  not  only  collected  their  dues,  but  were  treated 
to  refreshments  in  which  beer  and  certain  liquors  of  a 
more  vigorous  nature  figured  prominently.  The  re- 
sult was  that  some  of  the  bell-ringers  got  as  drunk  as 
"  fiddlers  "   before  the  tour  was  completed. 

Mr.  Taplow  was  alone  in  the  kitchen  this  evening, 
but  I  could  hear  his  wife  rummaging  about  upstairs. 
Presently  she  came  down  and  passed  through  into  the 
back  room.  She  was  a  thin,  sharp  old  woman  with  a 
nature  so  prim  and  precise  that  Mr.  Taplow's  easy- 
going ways  were  a  great  trial  to  her.  The  lady's  coun- 
tenance, as  she  snapped  the  back  room  door  behind  her, 
was  very  glum,  and  J  was  not  at  all  surprised  when  she 
called  Mr.  Taplow  out  and  gave  him  a  scolding.  But 
he  took  it  cheerfully  and  asked  her  to  come  in  and  let 
the  gentleman  have  a  sight  of  her  —  "  He'll  be  pleased 
to  see  across  woman,  I'll  be  bound." 

In  a  few  minutes  Mr.  Taplow  returned  to  the 
kitchen,  chuckling  and  winking  sagaciously.  He  said 
he  "liked  to  have  a  little  dig  with  her  now  and  then. 
She  scolds  me  well  and  then  is  sweet  as  sugar  right 
after." 

The  trouble  to-day  had  to  do  with  the  fact  that 
early  in  the  afternoon  his  wife  wanted  him  to  plant 


Mr.  Taplow  at  Hbme 


A  Village   Worthy  29 

potatoes  and  she  told  him  he  was  lazy.  He  would 
as  soon  plant  the  potatoes  as  not,  he  said,  but  to  be 
called  lazy  so  stirred  his  wrath  that  he  wouldn't  do 
anything  the  rest  of  the  day. 

It  is  not  to  be  inferred  that  this  was  a  fair  ex- 
ample of  life  in  the  Taplow  home,  for  I  usually 
found  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Taplow  as  comfortably  content 
with  the  world  and  with  each  other  as  the  average  of 
folk.  Even  when  he  got  off  one  of  his  favorite  jokes 
at  the  expense  of  women  in  general  and  of  Mrs.  Tap- 
low  in  particular,  it  made  no  disturbance  as  a  rule. 
I  remember  he  told  her  once  in  my  hearing,  that  a 
woman  was  simply  "a  piece  of  useful  household  furni- 
ture." Mrs.  Taplow  made  a  vague  attempt  at  wit 
in  reply  and  did  not  lose  her  good  nature.  She  was 
helping  him  on  with  his  necktie,  and  it  was  rather 
a  pretty  picture  to  see  her  care  for  him  and  his  joking 
fondness  for  her. 

Mr.  Taplow  was  often  reminiscent,  and  the  story  of 
his  life  ran  in  this  wise  :  "  I  was  born  here  in  this 
village,  and  I  went  to  a  private  school  here  when  I  was 
a  boy.  The  schoolin'  cost  sixpence  a  week.  Those 
in  the  same  class  would  set  on  the  same  bench,  boys 
and  girls  together.  So  it  come  natural  to  go  to  pokin' 
fun  and  crowdin'  up  agin  the  gal  that  set  next  you. 
But  if  we  got  too  sociable,  the  master'd  ketch  us  at 
it.     The  master  carried  a  stick  in  his  arm,  and  if  we 


^O  Among  English  Hedgerows 

didn't  behave,  crack  it  went  !  Yes,  if  you  got  out 
of  the  square,  he'd  drop  it  over  your  nob  very  sudden. 
Sometimes  he'd  throw  it  at  you.  Then  he'd  say, 
*  Now,  Robert,  bring  that  to  me;'  and  after  he'd  got 
you  out  on  the  floor  he'd  tell  you  to  touch  your  toes, 
and  as  soon  as  you  got  stooped  over  he'd  hit  you  from 
behind. 

"  After  I  got  through  school  I  sloped  (ran  away)  to 
Portsmouth  and  forgot  all  I  knew.  A  few  years  later 
I  went  up  to  London  and  got  took  on  the  police 
force  and  then  I  pretty  soon  married.  My  wife  was 
an  educated  woman,  and  we  used  to  read  together 
spare  time.  She  taught  me  all  I  know.  She'd  been 
brought  up  by  a  lady  that  educated  her  for  a  gover- 
ness—  only  she  happened  to  stumble  across  a  repro- 
bate like  me  and  didn't  accept  the  position  that  was 
made  for  her. 

"  We  had  two  sons.  My  wife  took  more  interest 
in  the  oldest  one  than  in  the  youngest,  and  we  gave 
him  the  best  education  and  he  turned  out  the  worst. 
He  got  a  position  as  stockbroker's  clerk,  and  things 
went  well  enough  for  a  time.  But  he  dropped  into 
curious  company,  I  suppose,  and  got  a  blot  put  upon 
his  name.  I  haven't  heard  from  him  these  twenty 
years.  He  wrote  and  said  he  was  going  to  Liverpool, 
and  that  was  the  last  word  that  ever  come  from  him. 
My  youngest  son  is  one  of  the  heads  in  a  printing 


A  Village  Worthy  3I 

establishment  on  Ludgate  Hill  there  in  London. 
When  I  go  in  to  see  him  I  can't  call  him  'Bill'  — 
he's  too  tony  for  that;  I  have  to  say  ^Mr.  Taplow ' 
to  him  just  as  I  would  to  any  gentleman. 

"  After  my  wife  died  I  married  my  present  wife, 
who  is  the  sister  of  my  first  wife.  There's  a  foolish 
law  that  says  you  shan't  marry  your  deceased  wife's 
sister,  and  the  vicar  we've  got  here  found  fault  with 
me  for  marryin'  as  I  had.  But  I  told  him  not  to 
meddle  with  my  affairs,  and  that  if  I  was  to  lose  this 
one  and  there  was  another  sister  in  the  same  family 
I'd  marry  her,  too." 

Mr.  Taplow  spent  a  good  deal  of  time  standing 
in  his  doorway  watching  the  sights  up  and  down  the 
street,  chatting  with  people  who  passed,  and  calling 
out  remarks  to  the  man  who  lived  over  the  way. 
He  usually  leaned  against  the  doorpost,  with  a  short 
pipe  in  his  mouth,  and  often  had  the  company  of  a 
sober  maltese  cat  named  Charlie,  which  sat  dozing  on 
the  brick  steps  at  his  master's  feet. 

Several  times  a  day  Mr.  Taplow  plodded  over  to 
the  hotel  to  get  a  mug  of  beer.  If  no  one  was  in 
the  bar  to  wait  on  him,  he  gave  the  floor  a  dig  with 
his  shoe.  In  part  he  did  his  drinking  at  home,  and 
once  or  twice  each  day  I  would  see  him  travelling 
across  the  road  from  the  public,  carrying  a  small 
pitcher  at  a  careful  perpendicular.     If  I  called  at  his 


32 


Among  English  Hedgerows 


house  just  afterward,  I  would  find  him  lunching  on 
bread  and  cheese  on  the  bare  boards  of  the  kitchen 


A  Mug  of  Beer  from  the  Inn 


table,  with  the  pitcher  at  his  elbow.  At  the  close  of 
the  repast  he  filled  his  pipe  from  the  broken  jar  that 
held  his  tobacco  on  the  mantlepiece,  and  the  atmos- 


A  Village  Worthy  ^3 

phere  of  the  room  would  soon  become  so  heavy  and 
redolent  that  I  would  take  my  leave. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  of  the  stories  that 
Mr.  Taplow  told  had  to  do  with  an  experience  of  his 
in  cleaning  his  chimney.  He  had  been  saying  that 
boy  sweeps  have  not  been  allowed  to  go  up  chimneys 
of  late  years.  Chimneys  put  up  now  are  too  small 
even  for  a  boy  to  climb  through,  and  they  have  to  be 
cleaned  with  a  machine.  But  great  numbers  of  little 
fellows  used  to  be  employed  at  this  work.  With  a 
short-handled  hoe  and  a  brush  the  boys  would  wriggle 
up  the  flues,  "and  when  they  got  to  the  top,"  said 
Mr.  Taplow,  "  they'd  poke  their  *ead  out  and  'oiler, 
'  Swe-e-ep ! '  They'd  be  black  as  that  pot  on  the 
hearth  there  when  they  come  down. 

"  That  reminds  me  of  the  time  when  we  lived  in 
Portsmouth,"  he  continued.  "The  Missus  had  been 
grumblin'  and  grumblin'  about  how  we'd  got  to  'ave 
our  chimney  swep',  and  I  said,  '  Why  don't  you  stop 
your  grumblin'  and  call  in  a  sweep  ?  ' 

"  But  she  only  kep'  on  grumblin',  and  one  day  I 
thought  I'd  try  my  'and  at  chimney  sweepin'.  The 
old  gun  stood  in  the  corner,  and  I  took  it  and  poked 
the  muzzle  up  the  chimney  and  fired.  I  was  like  to 
be  smothered.  The  soot  come  tumblin'  down  and 
covered  everythin'.  You  couldn't  see  the  fender,  and 
it  was  settling  two  inches  thick  way  out  on  the  other 


34  Among  English  Hedgerows 

side  of  the  room.     I   thought  I  had  better  make  my- 
self scarce."      ' 

"  Yes,"  commented  Mrs.  Taplow,  "  and  he  did. 
He  went  off  through  the  next  room,  leavin'  great  black 
footprints  all  the  way  and  shakin'  hisself  at  every  step." 

Mr.  Taplow  was  chuckling  with  huge  enjoyment  over 
the  remembrance  of  this  episode  when  the  tall  kitchen 
clock  chimed  eight.  That  brought  him  promptly  to 
his  feet  with  the  remark  that  it  was  "  clock-winding 
time." 

But  he  looked  toward  his  wife,  not  toward  the  clock, 
and  she  fumbled  in  the  bureau  drawer  and  handed 
him  some  small  coins.  He  slipped  the  money  into 
his  pocket  and  got  his  cane  and  hat  preparatory  to 
stepping  across  to  the  hotel  taproom. 

"  He  spends  more  than  half  his  money  over  the 
way,"  said  Mrs.  Taplow,  deprecatingly. 

"  1  have  a  Missus  in  London,"  was  Mr.  Taplow's 
response  —  "a  woman  they  call  *  Vic'  (Queen  Victoria) 
and  she  never  finds  fault.  She  sends  me  all  the 
money  I  need.  If  I  can't  live  on  Vic's  annuity, 
it's  time  I  stopped  living."  Then  he  stumped  away 
to  get  his   beer. 

One  evening  an  old  man  of  the  village  who  had 
been  a  lifelong  friend  of  Mr.  Taplow's  walked  away 
from  his  cottage  across  the  fields  to  a  little  pond,  waded 
in,  and  committed  suicide.     Search  for  him  was  made 


A  Village  Worthy 


3S 


next  day,  and  his  body  was  found  in  the  little  bush- 
bordered  pond. 

Every  village  tongue  was  set  a-wagging  then,  and 
there  was  no  detail  too  small  or  harrowing  but  that  its 
relation  had  eager  listeners.      All  who  could  saw  the 


Mr.  Taplow  digging  the  Suicide's  Grave 

corpse  when  it  was  brought  home,  and  some  of  the 
young  women  who  missed  the  sight  were  very  sorry 
they  had  been  deprived  of  so  interesting  a  spectacle. 


^6  Among  English   Hedgerows 

The  suicide  was  a  drinking  man,  but  it  was  generally 
thought  that  he  had  been  ill-treated  in  his  home,  and 
there  was  a  story  that  the  night  before  he  drowned 
himself  his  daughter  and  her  husband  had  tied  him 
down  on  the  floor.  The  sympathy  of  the  villagers 
was  with  him,  while  his  relatives  were  very  heartily 
condemned  by  public  sentiment. 

Mr.  Taplow,  as  sexton,  dug  the  suicide's  grave.  I 
found  him  at  this  work  as  I  was  passing  through  the 
churchyard  and  stopped  to  speak  with  him.  The  part 
of  the  churchyard  where  he  was  digging  was  newly  laid 
out,  and  was  nearly  vacant.  The  old  churchyard,  which 
was  only  separated  from  the  new  by  a  path,  had  been 
dug  over  and  over  again.  People  had  been  buried  in 
that  one  small  plot  for  a  thousand  years,  and  very  few 
graves  had  ever  been  protected  by  headstones.  The 
mould  was  full  of  bones,  and  at  present  a  body  was 
rarely  interred  there  without  encroaching  on  the  long- 
forgotten  grave  of  some  former  occupant.  Mr.  Tap- 
low  said,  the  last  time  he  dug  there,  he  brought  up  the 
bones  of  five  bodies,  and  when  he  had  finished  exca- 
vating, he  put  the  bones  in  the  bottom  of  the  grave 
and  covered  them  with  dirt.  But  he  told  the  vicar, 
and  the  vicar  said  it  was  time  to  stop,  and  had  this 
new  plot  added  to  the  old. 

The  village  carrier  took  it  on  himself  to  gather  con- 
tributions  toward   getting   a   wreath    for    the    suicide. 


A  Village   Worthy 


37 


This  carrier  went  twice  a  week  to  the  nearest  large 
town,  in  a  great  covered  cart.     He  picked  up  a  few 


The  Carrier  and  his  Cart 

passengers  among  the  laborers'  wives  and  daughters, 
and  he  carried  parcels  and  did  errands.  The  wreath 
he  bought  was  very  much  admired.  It  was  made  of 
some  unearthlv  artificial  flowers  in  a  glass  case.  There 
were  many  of  these  cases  on  the  churchyard  graves, 
and  I  suppose  the  flowers  thus  protected  kept  their 
unnatural  freshness  for  vears. 

The  suicide's  family  were  not  altogether  pleased  with 


38  Among  English  Hedgerows 

the  consideration  shown  the  dead  man  by  his  neigh- 
bors, and  they  were  indined  to  be  spiteful.  They 
said  they  would  have  no  flowers  put  on  the  grave, 
and  they  would  not  have  the  mufiled  chimes  rung  for 
him,  either.  But  old  Daniel,  the  suicide,  had  been  a 
bell-ringer,  and  his  friends  were  bound  the  mufiled 
chimes  should  be  rung,  and  they  were  rung.  The 
flowers  were  put  on  the  grave,  too ;  but,  for  fear  they 
would  be  stolen  or  injured,  they  were  kept  inside  the 
church  the  first  night. 

Not  long  after  old  Daniel's  burial,  I  left  Sedleigh, 
to  be  away  for  several  weeks.  On  my  return,  the 
first  bit  of  news  I  learned  at  the  Black  Stag  was 
that  Mr.  Taplow  was  no  longer  sexton.  They  said 
that  one  day  when  there  was  to  be  an  evening  prayer 
meeting,  he  had  drunk  too  heavily,  and,  as  a  conse- 
quence, had  so  prolonged  his  afternoon  nap,  that  he 
was  an  hour  later  than  he  should  have  been  about 
starting  to  attend  to  his  duties  at  the  church.  No 
bell  had  been  rung,  and  the  people  all  came  straggling 
in  very  late.  The  vicar  had  to  light  the  lamps  him- 
self, and  he  was  just  on  the  point  of  beginning  the 
service,  when  in  comes  Mr.  Taplow  and  goes  to  the 
tower  and  tolls  the  bell.  That  was  too  much  for 
the  vicar,  and  he  turned  Mr.  Taplow  off. 

I  had  a  chance  to  interview  Mr.  Taplow  on  the 
subject,   a   little  later.      He  was   leaning  against  the 


A  Village  Worthy  39 

door-jamb  of  his  Httle  porch,  just  as  if  he  had  not 
moved  all  the  time  I  had  been  away.  He  had  his 
customary  beer-soaked  odor  and  serious  tone,  and  the 
same  deep,  coughing  chuckle. 

I  started  to  ask  him  about  his  retirement  from  his 
duties  as  sexton,  but  as  soon  as  he  had  done  shaking 
hands,  and  got  his  intellect  focussed  on  me,  he  said, 
"  I  want  to  introduce  you  to  a  young  lady  that's  now 
stopping  in  the  village;"  and  he  went  on  to  tell  me 
that  she  was  a  fine  lady  from  Glasgow,  and  that  he  had 
told  her  about  me,  and  she  wanted  to  meet  me,  and 
that  her  husband,  who  had  been  one  of  the  Scotch 
gentry,  was  dead.  She  came  down  to  Sedleigh  every 
now  and  then  and  spent  a  few  weeks  in  a  cottage  that 
she  owned  and  that  he  had  the  care  of.  Yes,  she 
was  a  very  fascinating  young  widow,  and  he  wanted 
me  to  make  love  to  her  —  he  would  help  me  along 
all  he  could  and  give  me  a  recommend.  She  was 
wealthy,  and  he  didn't  think  I  could  do  better. 

He  informed  me  casually,  as  he  dwelt  on  the  vir- 
tues of  the  lady,  that  she  had  treated  him  that  day  to 
"a  glass  of  dew  off  Ben  Nevis" — in  other  words,  to 
Scotch  whiskey  —  and  I  thought  possibly  this  fact 
explained  his  amorous  plottings.  About  his  "  resig- 
nation "  as  sexton  Mr.  Taplow  said:  "The  vicar  was 
having  some  special  services  that  week ;  and  the  time 
we  had  this  trouble  —  I'll  own  I'd  had  an  extra  glass 


40  Among  English  Hedgerows 

or  two  —  it  was  my  pension  day  (the  day  when  his 
quarterly  remittance  arrived  and  which  he  naturally 
celebrated  by  taking  a  drop  more  than  on  ordinary 
days).  I'm  not  ashamed  to  own  my  faults  —  yes,  I'd 
been  having  a  little  extra.  My  Missus  was  away  that 
evening,  and  I  had  to  light  the  lamps  and  do  all  the 
things  of  that  kind  at  the  church  alone.  She  never 
came  till  I  was  all  finished,  and  then   I   up  and  says, 

*  This  is  a  nice  time  for  you  to  come  after  all  the 
work's  done.' 

"The  vicar  was  there,  and  he  heard  me,  and  he  says, 

*  That's  not  the  way  to  speak  to  your  wife,  and  in  the 
church,  too ; '  and  then  he  gave  me  the  sack  (turned 
him  off).  I  talked  back  to  the  vicar,  and  when  we  got 
through  he  said  he'd  give  me  two  days  to  beg  his  par- 
don—  I  could  have  my  place  again  if  I'd  do  that. 
But  I  won't  bow  the  knee  to  no  parson  nor  to  any 
other  man.  I'm  independent  of  them  all.  If  I  was 
to  go  begging  his  pardon,  I'd  expect  my  old  daddy 
would  rise  up  out  of  his  grave  before  me  and  give  me 
a  licking." 

Mr.  Taplow  seemed  to  be  rather  pleased  with  the 
way  he  had  carried  himself  in  this  exploit,  and  he  used 
very  mild  tones  when  he  told  what  he  said  to  his  wife 
and  very  gruff  and  stern  ones  when  he  repeated  what 
the  vicar  had  said  to  him. 

Doubtless  he  left  out  some  important  points  in  the 


A  Village  Worthy  41 

story.  He  took  considerable  comfort  in  the  fact  that 
when  he  resigned,  the  church  clock  stopped  and  stood 
still  a  whole  week  and  they  had  to  send  to  Allscott 
for  the  clockmaker  before  they  could  get  it  going 
again.  The  clock  was  old  and  queer,  and  he  was  the 
only  man  in  Sedleigh  who  understood  it.  Said  Mr. 
Taplow,  "  Old  Timothy  Abbott,  who  was  clerk  and 
sexton  for  many  years  before  me,  told  me  the  secret 
of  it-  He  cautioned  me  not  to  tell  any  one,  and  no 
more  I  never  did." 


Ill 

AN    EVENING    WITH    A    NIGHTINGALE 

SEDLEIGH,  like  every  other  English  hamlet, 
was  the  home  of  great  numbers  of  sparrows 
and  swallows  that  had  nests  in  the  village  roofs 
and  chimneys.  As  long  as  daylight  lasted  the  air  was 
full  of  their  twittering  and  chirping  while  the  songs 
of  countless  other  birds  were  heard  in  the  fields  and 
woods  and  the  scattered  trees  and  bushes  round  about. 
The  domestic  rooks  loitered  in  the  pastures  and  on  the 
cultivated  farm-lands  all  day ;  the  daws  hovered  about 
the  church  tower ;  groups  of  blackbirds  made  hasty 
flights  from  tree  to  tree;  lapwings  cried  in  the  fields; 
skylarks  climbed  far  up  toward  the  clouds;  and  every 
lane  and  roadway  was  enlivened  by  the  presence  and 
the  music  of  the  lesser  feathered  minstrels  of  all  kinds. 
They  were  everywhere,  and  the  carols  and  the  cho- 
ruses and  the  constant  sight  of  flitting  wings  made 
every  pleasant  day  pleasanter  still ;  but  I  was  not  sat- 
isfied till  I  heard  that  queen  among  English  birds  — 
the  nightingale. 

4a 


An   Evening  with  a  Nightingale  43 

May  came.  The  hedges  turned  snowy  with  the 
blossoms  of  the  hawthorn,  the  buttercups  mingled 
their  yellow  with  the  white  of  the  daisies  in  the  pas- 
tures, the  dandelions  began  to  get  grayheaded  and 
bald,  and  the  horsechestnut  and  sycamore  trees  came 
into  full  bloom. 

It  was  on  a  morning  in  the  middle  of  the  month 
that  I  went  for  a  walk  with  Mr.  Taplow.  We 
climbed  a  path  through  a  beechwood  to  a  broad, 
bushy  pasture  hill  known  as  Sedleigh  Down  or  Com- 
mon. Mr.  Taplow  had  his  cane  in  his  hand  and  he 
flourished  it  about  to  show  me  how  he  would  deal 
with  a  "viper"  if  we  came  across  one.  "I'd  like  to 
see  one  of  those  gentlemen,  now,"  said  he.  "I'm  that 
fond  of  them  I'd  walk  a  mile  to  have  a  rap  at  one 
with  my  stick." 

As  we  went  along  he  peered  into  the  bushes  in 
hopes  of  finding  bird's-nests.  At  last,  with  a  good 
deal  of  delight,  he  pointed  out  the  nest  of  a  thrush  in 
a  scrubby  young  apple  tree.  The  old  bird  was  still 
on,  and  continued  to  sit  very  quietly  with  head  alert, 
though  we  were  within  a  few  feet  of  it.  When  we 
went  on,  my  companion  said,  "  The  old  lady  didn't 
take  much  notice  of  us,  did  she?"  He  had  a  marked 
fondness  for  birds  and  showed  considerable  knowledge 
of  their  ways  and  songs. 

We  returned  to  the  village  by  a  long-disused  road, 


44 


Among  English  Hedgerows 


that  led  down  the  northern  slope  of  the  hill,  some- 
times in  the  twilight  of  an  evergreen  wood,  sometimes 
in  a  pasture  dell  where  the  short  turf  sparkled  with 
daisies.  It  was  almost  noon,  yet  along  here  we  caught 
several  times  stray  notes  from  a  nightingale's  song. 
Mr.  Taplow  trod  very  softly  and  bent  over  and  craned 


On  Sedleigh  Common 

his  neck  and  was  at  great  pains  to  catch  sight  of  the 
bird. 

He  did  not  succeed,  but  his  interest  was  aroused 
and  he  described  the  bird's  song  with  enthusiasm 
and  said  we  must  go  out  again  and  hear  it  to  better 


An  Evening  with  a  Nightingale  45 

advantage.  He  knew  a  place  where  the  nightingales 
sang  every  night  and  he  would  like  well  to  take  me 
there  some  pleasant  evening. 

A  little  later  in  the  week  I  met  Mr.  Taplow  on  the 
street  one  afternoon  and  I  remarked,  "  No  one  could 
ask  for  a  better  day  than  this,  could  they  ? " 

"No,"  was  the  response,  "it  couldn't  be  better  if 
we  made  it  ourselves." 

I  then  proposed  that  we  should  go  out  when  it 
became  dark  to  hear  the  nightingale.  He  agreed, 
and  said  the  best  place  for  them  was  a  mile  or  so 
down  a  little  valley  that  the  villagers  called  "  the  long 
lithe." 

At  eight  o'clock  I  rapped  at  Mr.  Taplow's  door. 
He  said  he  would  just  step  over  to  the  hotel  to  get 
half  a  pint  of  beer  and  then  he  would  be  with  me. 
When  he  returned  he  got  his  stick,  and  presently  we 
were  following  the  winding  path  down  the  half-wooded 
valley  of  the  lithe.  At  one  place  we  climbed  a  gate, 
and  Mr.  Taplow  said,  "Some  people  would  rather 
climb  a  gate  than  go  through  it,  any  time.  They 
say  an  Irishman  will  climb  a  gate  even  if  it's  wide 
open." 

A  little  farther  on  we  passed  through  the  dense 
gloom  of  a  bit  of  wood,  and  Mr.  Taplow  observed 
that  it  was  as  black  as  London  in  a  fog. 

"  What  is  a  real  London  fog  like  ? "  I  inquired. 


46  Among  English  Hedgerows 

Mr.  Taplow  replied,  "  God  knows  !  —  and  I  know. 
You  can't  have  air  more  nasty,  stinking,  and  full  of 
smoke.  It's  darker  'n  night.  Why,  I  couldn't  see 
you  just  across  this  path  in  a  London  fog.  They 
have  the  gas  lit  all  day  and  people  go  around  with 
torches.  It  chokes  you,  and  if  your  lungs  ain't  just 
right,  it  finds  you  out  pretty  quick." 

We  heard  a  bird  chirrup  just  then,  and  stopped  in- 
tent to  hear  more,  but  no  song  followed,  and  after  a 
little  we  went  through  a  piece  of  scrubby  woodland 
and  on  the  other  side  sat  on  a  stile  and  listened. 
From  near  by  came  the  sound  of  a  little  brook  rushing 
and  tumbling  down  the  hillside,  but  no  nightingale 
vouchsafed  to  sing,  and  again  we  resumed  our  walk. 
The  path  now  kept  along  the  edge  of  the  wood  in  a 
pasture,  and  here  we  found  our  bird  and  heard  it  pipe 
and  twitter  and  break  into  full  song.  A  half-moon 
shone  high  in  the  sky,  a  dog  barked  far  off,  some  cattle 
lying  in  dark  heaps  about  the  dim  field  made  them- 
selves apparent  by  an  occasional  movement  and  by 
their  heavy  breathing.  Old  Mr.  Taplow  leaning  for- 
ward on  his  cane  chuckled  huskily  when  the  bird  made 
a  particularly  happy  run ;  I  put  my  hands  in  my 
pockets  and  got  myself  into  small  compass,  for  the 
evening  was  chilly  and  damp. 

The  bird  was  not  far  away  in  the  brushy  wood,  and 
its  singing  was  most  charming.     It  trilled  and  gurgled 


An  Evening  with  a  Nightingale  49 

and  whistled  with  many  quick  and  unexpected  changes. 
The  song  had  the  freedom  and  strength  of  noble  music. 
Some  of  the  notes  were  of  the  utmost  purity  and  clear- 
ness and  they  seemed  to  penetrate  into  all  the  region 
about.  The  wonder  was  that  a  bird  with  so  beautiful 
a  song  should  sing  only  in  the  night.  Darkness  seems 
a  time  for  whip-poor-wills,  owls,  and  frogs,  and  other 
weird-voiced  creatures  —  not  for  such  dainty  music. 

But  the  air  was  so  keen  and  its  dampness  so  pene- 
trating that  we  could  not  with  comfort  linger  late, 
even  if  the  singing  was  most  beautiful,  and  presently 
we  plodded  along  back  to  the  village.  Mr.  Taplow 
said  he  often  went  down  there  to  Coomb  Wood  of 
an  evening  when  he  hadn't  anything  else  to  do,  and 
sat  for  hours  listening  to  the  nightingale.  He  took 
great  pride  in  the  bird. 

Olive,  the  maid  at  the  Black  Stag  hotel,  said  she 
had  never  heard  a  nightingale.  I  told  her  to  go 
down  the  lithe  and  then  she  might.  But  she  re- 
plied that  she  didn't  dare  to  go  down  the  lithe  after 
dark.  A  man  hung  himself  in  an  oak  tree  down 
there  once  and  they  said  his  ghost  still  walked  the 
lithe  at  midnight. 

In  one  of  my  rambles  in  Yorkshire  I  fell  in  with 
a  man  whose  shovel  hat  and  long  black  coat  and 
sobriety  of  demeanor  proclaimed  him  to  be  a  clergy- 
man.    We  walked  along  in  company  for  a  time  and 


50  Among  English  Hedgerows 

in   the   course  of  the  conversation   he   repeated   this 
rhyme  to  me  about  the  nightingale:  — 

In  K-pril 

Come  she  will. 

In  May 

She's  sure  to  stay. 

In  June 

She's  in  full  tune. 

In  Kvi-gust 

Go  she  must. 

I   think  this  indicates   quite  accurately  the   habits 
of  the  bird. 


IV 


A    TALK    AT    THE    SHOEMAKER  S 

ONE  warm  day  that  was  marked  by  frequent 
sprinkles  which  the  villagers  said  were 
"  thunderdrops,"  I  called  on  the  shoe- 
maker. My  American  shoes  had  not  proved  as 
serviceable  as  I  expected.  English  roads  are  hard 
and  gritty  and  very  unkind  to  footwear.  It  is  aston- 
ishing how  quickly  one's  soles  are  ground  off.  That 
may  be  the  reason  why  the  shoes  worn  in  England 
are  so  much  heavier  than  ours,  and  it  accounts  for 
the  protruding  nails  with  which  the  bottoms  are 
hobbed  all  over.  In  the  country  nearly  every  one 
wears  such  shoes,  even  the  women  and  children. 
They  are  stout  enough  to  do  away  with  the  need 
for  rubbers.  Indeed,  except  in  the  cities,  rubbers, 
or  galoshes  as  the  English  call  them,  are  of  little 
value,  for  one  long  walk  on  a  country  road  would  cut 
them  through  and  make  them  useless. 

The  shoemaker's  shop  was  a  little  room  at  one  end 
of  the  tiny  house  that  was  his  home.     There  we  sat, 

5« 


52  Among  English  Hedgerows 

and  while  he  soled  my  shoes  we  talked.  We  had  just 
begun  when  a  boy  from  the  grocer's  came  in  and  left 
half  a  bushel  of  malt.  The  shoemaker's  wife  was 
going  to  brew  beer.  In  nearly  all  the  village  homes 
the  making  of  home-brewed  beer  was  a  frequent  house- 
hold duty  and  it  was  drunk  by  the  whole  family  as 
freely  as  if  it  had  been  tea  or  coffee.  The  shoemaker 
said  his  "  nippers  "  (children)  were  not  much  at  eating, 
but  they  were  very  fond  of  beer,  and  he  thought  it 
was  good  for  them. 

For  some  reason  or  other  the  presence  of  the  home- 
brew in  the  family  larders  does  not  seem  to  have  any 
appreciable  effect  in  keeping  the  men  away  from  the 
"  publics."  Comradeship  and  the  clubs  will  take  a 
man  to  the  inns  if  nothing  else  will.  The  laborers  and 
humbler  tradespeople  of  this  village  had  two  or  three 
clubs  that  met  weekly  or  monthly  at  an  inn  agreed 
on.  The  objects  of  the  clubs  are  sociability  and 
mutual  insurance.  One  club  was  called  "  The  Pig 
Club,"  because  the  purpose  of  the  club  was  to  insure 
pigs.  If  a  pig  belonging  to  a  member  of  the  club  is 
so  unfortunate  as  to  die  a  natural  death  or  come  to 
an  end  in  any  other  way  except  by  the  hands  of  the 
butcher,  the  club  makes  up  the  loss  to  that  member. 

The  chief  club  of  the  village  has  a  grand  fete  day 
in  summer,  when  there  are  games,  banners,  tents, 
speeches,  and  a  great  dinner.     The  leading  tradesmen 


^'2^- 


DQ 


A  Talk  at  the  Shoemaker's  ^$ 

of  the  place  take  advantage  of  the  occasion  to  adver- 
tise themselves  into  favor  by  giving  the  crowd  a  liberal 
supply  of  free  beer,  and  no  effort  is  spared  to  make 
the  fete  wholly  convivial  and  joyous.  There  is  a 
band  present,  and  among  other  things  it  always  plays 
the  song  that  ends  with  the  chorus,  "  Britons  never, 
never,  never  shall  be  slaves."  My  shoemaker  said 
there  was  something  about  that  piece  that  went  against 
the  grain  with  him  because,  "  It's  not  true.  I  know 
the  Britons  are  slaves  —  lots  of  'em.  I'd  like  to  hear 
some  man  get  up  at  the  club  dinner  —  some  man  that 
could  talk  —  and  say,'  I'm  quite  surprised,  gentlemen, 
to  hear  the  band  play  such  a  wrong  thing.'  It  would 
make  them  open  their  eyes,  wouldn't  it  ? 

"  There's  a  man  just  goin'  past.  He's  been  workin' 
from  early  morning,  ten  hours,  for  his  master.  Now 
he's  goin'  home  to  have  tea,  and  work  in  his  garden  a 
while,  and  then  he'll  be  goin'  out  again  for  two  or  three 
hours  to  help  his  wife,  'op-tying.  He  and  his  wife  has 
to  work  all  they  can  to  get  along.  They  couldn't  live  on 
their  weekly  wages.  They  has  to  do  task  work  to  earn 
something  extra  or  they'd  have  to  go  to  the  *  Union ' 
(that  is,  the  workhouse.  It  gets  the  former  name  from 
the  fact  that  several  communities  now  usually  unite  to 
maintain  a  single  home  for  their  poor).  That  man  in 
harvest  just  slivers  into  it  and  works  night  and  day, 
and  the  wife    helps.     The   employers  !  —  they   don't 


56 


Among  English  Hedgerows 


A  Laborer  trimming  a  Hedge 


care  whether  a 
man  lives  or 
dies,  and  if  they 
get  a  man  down 
they  tread  on 
him.  They  can 
do  anything  to 
a  man,  or  to  his 
wife  or  children 
—  and  they 
does  pretty 
roughish  things 
sometimes  — 
and  the  man 
daren't  make 
any  complaint. 
If  he  does, 
come  Saturday 
night,  there's 
his  wages  and 
he's  not  want- 
ed any  more. 
Then  where's 
he  to  go,  and 
where's  his  next 
week's  food  to 
come  from  ? " 


A  Talk  at  the  Shoemaker's  57 

Mr,  Taplow  happened  in  at  the  shoemaker's  about 
this  time,  and  he  said,  "  Yes,  these  laborers  travel  from 
hedge  to  hedge  till  they  are  wore  out,  and  they're  so 
dependent  on  their  master  that  some  of  'em  are  afraid  to 
say  their  soul's  their  own.  That's  not  my  style.  I'm 
not  afraid  of  any  man.  I  have  my  pension  — eighteen 
shillings,  tenpence,  ha'  penny  every  week,  and  1  just 
as  soon  tell  a  man  what  I  think  of  him  as  to  look  at 
him. 

"  The  laborers,  as  soon  as  they  can't  do  a  fair  day's 
work,  are  sent  to  the  workhouse.  You  can  depend 
on't  they  don't  stay  there  long  before  they're  brought 
home  in  a  little  four-wheel  trap,  and  buried  in  the 
churchyard. 

"  The  workhouse's  worse  than  the  grave,  to  the 
thinking  of  a  good  many  of  the  laborers.  There  was 
poor  old  Tom  Christurn  that  lived  down  here  next  to 
the  chapel.  He's  dead  these  two  years  now.  He  was 
getting  old  and  couldn't  support  himself,  but  he  always 
said  he  wouldn't  go  to  the  Union,  and  he  didn't.  The 
day  they  came  to  take  him  he  cut  his  throat. 

"  The  treatment's  not  over  grand  at  the  workhouse, 
and  they're  not  overfed  there  either,  and  they  get  no 
beer  or  other  liquors.  Then  the  men  and  women, 
except  the  older  people,  are  all  separated.  A  man 
would  never  see  his  wife  there,  only  by  chance  in  the 
yard.      The    preachers  say,  'What  God  hath  joined 


58  Among  English  Hedgerows 

together,  let  no  man  put  asunder';  but  they  don't 
pay  much  attention  to  that  saying  at  the  workhouse." 
This  discourse  of  Mr.  Taplow's  made  me  eager  to 
see  some  paupers  for  myself,  and  a  few  days  later  I  had 
the  chance.  It  was  on  the  occasion  of  a  picnic  given  to 
the  workhouse  folk  by  a  gentleman  of  a  neighboring  vil- 
lage. The  paupers  numbered  thirty  or  forty,  the  men 
in  dark  caps  and  white  smock  frocks,  and  the  women 
in  blue  gowns  and  white  aprons.  They  were  very 
neat,  yet  they  had  a  bleached  out,  broken-down  look, 
as  if  capacity  and  energy  were  pretty  well  gone.  It 
was  a  look  very  different  from  the 
tough,  knotty  brownness  of  the  old 
men  still  at  work  in  the  fields. 
I  was  told  that  one  reason  for 
the  antipathy  of  the  poor 
to    the    workhouse 

is     that    there    a 
m 

*•  person  is  com- 

pelled to  keep 
clean  and  be  reg- 
ular in  his  habits. 
Cleanliness     is    a 
^  ^""P"'-  bugbear,  and  it  is 

a  common  saying  when  a  man  is  entering  the  Union, 
"  Well,  he  won't  last  long.  They'll  soon  wash  him 
to  death  when  he  gets  there." 


A  Talk  at  the  Shoemaker's  59 

The  gentleman  who  entertained  the  paupers  in  his 
park  had  them  brought  from  the  Union  in  several 
wagons  arched  over  with  greens,  and  at  the  foot  of  his 
lawn  he  put  up  a  big  tent  in  which  was  spread  a  grand 
feast.  After  the  servants  had  served  dinner  the  old 
people  left  the  tent  and  disposed  themselves  comfort- 
ably on  the  grass  and  seats  under  the  trees.  Most  of 
the  old  men  gathered  in  the  shade  of  a  great  beech, 
where  tobacco  and  a  basket  of  clay  pipes  were  passed 
around. 

The  tobacco  was  a  treat.  Men  in  the  workhouse  are 
not  allowed  tobacco  unless  their  age  is  over  seventy. 
Even  those  who  have  an  allowance  are  not  satisfied, 
and  it  is  the  custom  for  visiting  friends  to  bring  along 
a  little  tobacco  for  a  present  when  they  call  at  the 
workhouse.  As  for  the  old  women,  they  complain 
about  their  allowance  of  tea.  They  are  all  very  fond 
of  the  teapot  by  the  time  they  go  to  the  workhouse, 
and  when  friends  call  on  one  of  the  woman  paupers 
they  present  her  with  an  ounce  of  tea,  a  little  sugar, 
and  possibly  a  few  new-laid  eggs. 

While  the  old  people  were  lounging  and  smoking, 
a  band  of  music  in  red  uniforms  arrived,  and  spent 
two  hours  playing  to  the  company.  The  gentleman 
who  was  the  patron  of  the  day  joined  in  the  paupers* 
celebration  to  the  extent  of  lunching  with  a  party  of 
friends    on    the    other    side   of  the   wide    lawn.      He 


6o  Among  English  Hedgerows 

thought  the  old  people  would  enjoy  themselves  best 
if  left  alone.  They  were  not  at  all  demonstrative ; 
their  vitality  had  ebbed  too  low  for  that ;  but  in  their 
way  they  found  it  a  grand  occasion  —  one  to  talk  of 
for  weeks  afterward.  Like  all  good  things,  however, 
it  had  to  have  an  end,  and  at  eight  o'clock  the  paupers 
were  helped  into  their  green-arbored  wagons  and  sent 
back  to  the  Union,  where  destiny  had  appointed  that 
sooner  or  later  what  was  left  of  their  broken  lives 
should  flicker  out. 

Mr.  Taplow,  as  we  talked  that  afternoon  at  the 
shoemaker's,  advanced  his  pet  theory  that  the  way 
to  avoid  the  workhouse  was  for  the  young  fellows  to 
go  into  the  government  service  and  work  till  they 
could  retire  on  a  pension.  He  held  himself  to  be  a 
shining  example  of  the  wisdom  of  such  a  course,  for 
his  life  now  was  practically  that  of  a  gentleman  of  lei- 
sure. "  I  tell  'em,"  said  he,  "  that  they're  afraid  to 
leave  their  mother's  apron  strings  —  and  they  are. 
They  work  along  for  the  farmers  till  they  get  mar- 
ried, and  then  they  are  bound  so  they  can't  get  away 
or  have  independence  any  more  if  they  wanted  it. 
After  a  poor  laborer  marries  he's  about  the  same  as 
a  slave  through  life." 

The  shoemaker's  opinion  of  government  service 
was  less  rosy,  and  his  strictures  on  army  service  were 
severe.     To  quote  his  words,  he  said :   "  The  young 


A  Talk  at  the  Shoemaker's 


6i 


chaps  that  go  for  soldiers  are  mostly  wild  and  up  to  all 
sorts  of  games.     You  can  pretty  near  always  tell  who's 


Returning  fronn  Work  in  the  Fields 

going  —  it's  the  uneasy  kind  that  finds  our  life  dull. 
They  want  to  see  the  world  and  have  more  style  than 
they  can  at  home  —  and  people  is  apt  to  say  when  a 
fellow  goes  —  'Oh,  he'll  do  as  well  as  some  of  the 
rest  to  stop  a  bullet.'  The  life  of  the  soldier  aren't 
the  kind  to  make  a  man  love  hard  work,  and  you  can 
depend  upon't  that  when  a  soldier  comes  home  after 
he's  been  sparring  about  the  way  they   do,   he's  not 


6i  Among  English  Hedgerows 

good  for  much.  Those  that  serves  only  a  part  of 
their  time  often  comes  back  and  lives  on  their  parents 
and  don't  go  to  work  till  they  has  to.  There's  some 
of  the  roughest  sort  of  tramp  chaps  too  in  the  army 
that  the  recruiters  brings  in,  so  wild,  some  of  'em,  they 
don't  know  what  to  do  with  'em  after  they've  got  'em. 
The  soldiers  are  a  smartish  lot  and  live  pretty  loose, 
most  of  'em  ;  but  there's  some  that  go  in  business- 
like and  serves  through  till  they  gets  a  pension  and 
they  do  very  well." 

A  little  before  I  left  the  shoemaker's,  a  cat  that  had 
been  lying  on  the  hearth  began  to  cough,  and  the 
shoemaker  got  up  and  scared  her  out  with  the  remark, 
"  They  says  as  that  is  a  sign  of  sickness  in  the  family 
when  a  cat  coughs  in  the  house.  It's  a  sign  the 
house-folks'll  be  havin'  colds,  as  a  rule,  I  thinks ;  but 
then  colds  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  sickness." 

Then  he  went  on  to  tell  of  a  number  of  other 
superstitions  of  the  same  sort.     For  instance  :  — 

"  When  a  spark  flies  out  of  the  fire  at  you,  that  is 
a  sign  some  one  has  a  spite  against  you.  Spit  at  the 
spark,  and  the  spite  won't  harm  you. 

"  If  a  robin  comes  near  the  house  and  begins  weepin' 
about,  it's  a  sign  of  death. 

"  Where  the  wind  is  the  twenty-first  of  March,  there 
she'll  be  principally  till  the  twenty-first  of  June." 

I  asked  the  shoemaker  if  he  knew  of  any  good  wart 


A  Cottage  View  on  Washing-day 


A  Talk  at  the  Shoemaker's  65 

cures,  and  this  led  to  his  relating  the  following  bit  of 
personal  experience.  "  I  had,"  said  he,  "  as  many  as 
five  or  six  warts  on  my  hand  this  last  year,  and  some 
one  told  me  to  wash  'em  in  the  water  that  they  use 
to  cool  their  irons  in  the  blacksmiths'  shops,  and  say 
nothing  to  nobody,  and  the  warts  would  leave.  I 
didn't  believe  in  it  much,  but  I  tried  it.  I'd  go  into 
the  smith's  shop  and  dip  my  hands  in  as  if  I  was  just 
dabblin'  in  it,  playin'  with  the  tongs  or  something,  and 
keep  on  talkin'  about  things  so  't  nobody  would  notice, 
'cause  you  mustn't  say  anything,  or  else  they  won't 
come  off.  I  did  that  three  times,  and  in  six  weeks  my 
warts  had  gone. 

"  My  Missus  had  two  warts,  and  when  I  see  what 
they  did  for  mine,  I  tried  to  persuade  her  to  try  it,  but 
she  didn't  have  cheek  enough. 

"  Well,  they  said  you  could  throw  some  peas  down 
a  well  —  as  many  as  you  had  warts  —  and  when  they 
rotted  the  warts  would  go.  So  I  did  that  for  my 
wife,  and  one  of  her  warts  has  gone  now.  She's  sur- 
prised herself  about  it.  I  don't  know  whether  I  did 
it  or  not.     Maybe  the  other  pea  ain't  rotted  yet." 

To  end  with,  the  shoemaker  told  me  of  a  fairy's 
house  he  had  seen  with  his  own  eyes  at  Bramdean,  a 
village  a  few  miles  distant.  The  fairy  house  is  a  ruin 
now,  he  said,  but  there  is  no  doubt  about  its  having 
been  really  built  by  the  fairies.     You  can  see  the  foun- 


66  Among  English   Hedgerows 

dations  and  parts  of  the  walls.  "It  is  a  little,  tiny 
house,  and  made  of  little,  tiny  brick  not  over  half  a 
finger  long.  It  is  in  a  meadow,  but  no  grass  grows 
on  the  spot  where  the  house  is.  Near  it  are  the  places 
where  the  fairies  had  their  little  ricks.  You  can  see 
the  stones  laid  to  build  the  ricks  on.  In  the  same 
meadow  are  some  horses  buried  with  silver  shoes  on." 
I  asked  the  reason  of  the  silver  shoes,  and  he  said 
that  horses  shod  with  silver  shoes  would  never  stumble. 


COUNTRY  WORK  AND  WORKERS 

A  HUNDRED-ACRE  farm  in  England  is 
accounted  small.  Twice  or  three  times 
that  number  of  acres  only  make  a  fair- 
sized  farm,  and  those  that  contain  between  five 
hundred  and  one  thousand  acres  are  frequent.  The 
English  farmer  rarely  owns  the  land  he  tills ;  he 
rents  it  from  the  gentry.  It  is  astonishing  to  an 
American  that  the  farmers  can  pay  the  rents  they 
are  charged  and  live.  Even  poor  soil  commands  a 
yearly  rental  of  five  dollars  an  acre,  while  the  best 
land  brings  four  times  that  sum. 

Farmhouses  as  a  rule  stand  lonely  and  neighborless, 
dotting  here  and  there  the  wide  stretches  of  open 
country  between  villages.  The  villages  themselves  are 
made  up  of  the  homes  of  the  gentry,  tradespeople, 
and  laborers.  There  may  be  a  farmhouse  or  two  on 
the  outskirts,  but  never  village  clusters,  such  as  we  are 
familiar  with  in  New  England,  where  the  farmhouses 
predominate. 

67 


68 


Among  English  Hedgerows 


Ordinarily  the  farmhouse  is  a  large,  solid,  two-story 
building  of  brick  or  stone.  It  stands  on  the  borders 
of  a  big  farmyard,  and  with  the  great  barns  and  sheds, 
the  cottages  of  the  help,  and  the  ricks  of  hay  and  grain 
close  about,  the  whole  has  quite  the  look  of  a  little 
hamlet.  A  part  of  the  yard  in  front  of  the  house  is 
reserved  for  a  lawn,  where  are  various  shrubs  and 
flower-beds.     Back  of  the  house  are  a  garden  and  a 


The  Farmyard  and  the  Barn 


number  of  fruit  trees.  Among  these  are  several  apple 
trees,  but  the  English  trees  of  this  genus  do  not  have 
the   hardiness  and  vigor  they  attain  on  our  side   of 


Country  Work  and  Workers  69 

the  Atlantic,  and  you  never  see  large  orchards  of 
them. 

In  one  corner  of  the  farmyard,  or  somewhere  about 
the  buildings,  is  usually  a  spot  full  of  broken  down 
machinery  and  other  rubbish  half  hidden  in  a  rank 
tangle  of  grass  and  weeds.  In  another  corner  is  a 
pond  of  what  looks  to  be  stagnant  and  filthy  water 
with  apparently  neither  inlet  nor  outlet.  This  is  the 
paddling-place  of  the  farm  ducks  and  geese,  and  there 
you  see  the  swallows  darting  and  making  sudden  dips 
in  the  dark  water.  But  its  chief  purpose  is  to  serve 
as  a  drinking-place  for  the  cows  and  horses.  The 
muddy  margin  of  the  pond  is  always  cut  up  with  the 
imprints  of  their  hoofs,  for  they  are  very  fond  of  this 
water  and  prefer  it  to  a  running  brook.  Indeed,  I 
was  often  told  that  cows  thrive  on  it,  and  that  they 
give  milk  of  a  superior  quality  if  they  have  a  slimy 
pond  in  the  barnyard  to  drink  out  of.  The  pond  is 
in  the  lowest  part  of  the  farmyard  and  is  an  artificial 
hollow  scooped  out  and  puddled  with  clay.  It  catches 
the  drainage  from  the  land  surrounding  and  from  the 
farm  roofs,  and  it  never  goes  entirely  dry  except  in 
severe  drouths. 

The  barns  are  broad  and  low  and  are  very  apt  to  be 
twisted  and  bent  with  the  weight  of  years.  The  eaves, 
all  around,  are  barely  out  of  reach.  Usually  the  sides 
are  of  weatherworn  clapboards  that  at  some  time  have 


70  Among  English  Hedgerows 

been  tarred.  Paint  does  not  last  well  in  this  climate, 
and  the  man  who  wishes  extra  wearing  qualities  in 
wooden  walls  or  fences  gives  them  a  coat  of  tar. 

The  barn  roof  is  either  a  great  expanse  of  evenly- 
laid  straw  thatch  or  an  equally  great  expanse  of  red 
tiling  or  gray  slate.  The  barns  do  not  get  the  care 
that  is  given  the  houses,  and  where  the  roofs  are 
of  straw  they  are  likely  to  be  full  of  holes  torn 
by  sparrows  for  their  nests.  You  never  find  any 
barns  of  the  American  sort  with  a  cellar  underneath 
and  two  or  three  stories  above.  The  gloomy  cavern 
of  the  interior  is  crisscrossed  with  great  beams,  but 
it  looks  vacant.  Barns  are  simply  storage  places  for 
tools,  roots,  and  threshed  grain,  with  a  few  rude 
stables  for  cows  and  horses.  Hay  and  unthreshed 
cereals  are  stacked  out  of  doors,  the  latter  in  the 
farmyard,  the  former  oftenest  in  a  corner  of  the  field 
where  it  is  cut.  These  stacks,  or  ricks,  as  they  are 
called,  are  oblong  in  shape  and  broaden  out  a  little 
from  the  base  upward.  They  are  crowned  with  roof- 
like tops  of  thatch.  It  is  believed  to  be  best  to  get 
the  hay  into  the  ricks  before  it  is  quite  dry  that  it 
may  sweat  a  little  in  the  mass.  A  slight  fermentation 
is  supposed  to  improve  its  quality.  The  harvest 
requires  nice  judgment;  for  the  hay  must  not  sweat 
too  much  or  it  will  be  harmed,  and  for  a  large  rick, 
where  the  liability  to  sweat  is  increased,  the  hay  must 


Country  Work  and  Workers 


71 


Unloading  at  the  Rick 

be  dryer  than  for  a  small  rick.  Some  ricks  you  pass 
in  harvest  time  have  a  sweet,  honeylike  odor;  others 
have  a  sour  smell  that  is  apparent  at  quite  a  distance. 
Once  in  a  while  a  rick  not  judiciously  made  will  get 
to  smoking,  and  the  hay  in  the  centre  will  be  blackened 
and  spoiled. 

Of  the  laborers  on  a  farm,  the  ploughmen,  carters, 
and  shepherds  keep  steadily  at  one  kind  of  work  the 
year  through.  The  rest  change  their  tasks  with  the 
changing  requirements  of  the  farm  and  of  the  seasons. 
But   whatever  an   individual  does,    his  life  is  one  of 


72  Among  English  Hedgerows 

set  hours  just  as  much  as  if  he  was  employed  in  a 
factory.  When  he  works  overtime,  it  is  by  agree- 
ment, and  he  gets  extra  pay. 

At  first  thought  an  American  would  not  think  it 
possible  for  a  ploughman  to  keep  at  his  work  uninter- 
ruptedly the  year  through,  yet  such  is  the  mildness 
of  the  climate  that  snow  and  frost  do  not  have  to  be 
reckoned  with  seriously.  From  January  to  December 
the  ploughman  plods  the  furrows,  turning  under  one 
field  after  another,  and  even  if  there  is  a  cold  snap  sharp 
enough  to  stop  the  plough,  it  is  only  for  a  few  days. 

Ploughmen  and  carters  are  up  at  four  o'clock  to 
feed  their  horses.  They  breakfast  an  hour  later  and 
are  in  the  fields  to  begin  work  at  half-past  six. 
About  the  middle  of  the  afternoon  they  all  return 
to  the  farmhouse,  the  carters  in  their  carts,  and  the 
ploughmen  and  ploughboys  mounted  side-saddle  on 
their  horses  that  go  clanking  along  in  single  file  till 
they  reach  the  farmyard  gate.  The  riders  slide  oflF, 
and  their  horses  with  those  that  are  released  from 
the  carts  go  down  to  the  pool  for  a  drink  and  then 
tramp  on  to  their  stables,  where  they  are  unharnessed 
and  fed  and  groomed.  This  done,  the  day's  work  of 
the  carters  and  followers  of  the  plough  is  finished. 

The  soil  about  Sedleigh  was  uncommonly  heavy,  and 
four  horses  were  the  rule  to  each  plough.  The  plough- 
man did  not  attempt  to  guide  his  own  team,  but  had  a 


r 


Country  Work  and  Workers  75 

boy  to  walk  along  beside  the  horses  and  urge  them 
on.  These  boys  earned  their  wages,  I  thought,  for 
they  kept  shouting  to  their  teams  all  the  time,  adding 
emphasis  by  an  occasional  crack  of  the  whip.  How- 
ever, the  shouts  and  the  belaboring  with  the  lash 
seemed  purely  matters  of  form,  and  the  horses  stepped 
along  perfectly  oblivious  to  it,  so  far  as  I  could  see. 

To  my  ears  it  was  a  curious  jargon  that  the  boys 
talked  to  their  horses,  and  after  endeavoring  in  vain  to 
make  sense  of  it  I  asked  for  an  explanation.  Horse 
language  in  England  I  found  was  quite  different  from 
that  in  the  "  States,"  as  they  call  our  country.  For 
our  "  Haw "  and  "  Gee "  they  say  to  the  front  pair 
of  horses  "  Maether  ho  "  and  "  Gee  woot" ;  to  the  rear 
horses  "Jay  up"  and  "Hoot  woot."  To  hasten  the 
team  they  say  "  Gee  up  "  ;  to  stop  it  "  Weigh  "  ;  to 
back  it  "  Woot  back." 

After  all,  this  applies  to  only  one  section  of  England. 
Horse  language  varies  in  different  countries  just  as  the 
dialects  of  the  people  do. 

In  former  days  much  of  the  heavy  farm  work  was 
done  with  bullocks.  Now  a  bullock  team  is  compara- 
tively rare.  Nothing  could  be  more  picturesque.  The 
oxen,  instead  of  wooden  neck-yokes,  wear  simple  har- 
nesses made  of  broad  leather  bands,  and  each  creature 
has  on  a  pair  of  great  leather  blinders  which  gives  it  a 
look  truly  antediluvian.     As  it  takes  four  bullocks  to 


76  Among  English  Hedgerows 

one  plough,  they,  with  the  ploughman  and  the  plough- 
boy,  make  a  procession  that  is  quite  impressive. 

In  strange  contrast  with  the  slow  bullock  teams,  so 
suggestive  of  antiquity,  one  is  surprised  to  find  that 
he  cannot  travel  far  in  the  English  country  without 
seeing  in  some  wide  field  a  steam  plough  at  work,  or  a 
steam  thrasher  established  next  a  "corn"  rick.  Some- 
times you  meet  the  engines  with  all  their  apparatus  in 
tow  steaming  along  the  highway,  or  they  will  come 
rattling  and  panting  right  through  the  midst  of  the 
village  where  you  happen  to  be  stopping.  They  are 
formidable  affairs,  and  it  takes  five  men  to  make  a 
working  crew. 

Every  farm  has  its  flock  of  sheep.  In  some  parts 
of  the  country  there  are  moors  and  commons  and 
rough  uplands  where  the  sheep  are  turned  loose  to 
graze.  But  more  often  they  occupy  the  ordinarv  farm 
fields.  Many  farmers  keep  them  still  farther  confined 
within  a  basket-work  fencing  woven  from  split  hazel. 
These  hurdles,  as  they  are  called,  are  made  in  light  de- 
tachments that  allow  them  to  be  readily  moved,  and 
as  soon  as  the  sheep  have  grazed  one  space  clean  their 
fence  is  transferred  to  enclose  new  ground.  All  this 
was  explained  to  me  one  day  by  a  shepherd  with  whom 
I  stopped  to  talk  as  he  was  at  his  work  in  a  roadside 
field.  Then  he  drifted  into  personal  reminiscences  and 
said  that  he  had  been  brought  up  to  tend  sheep.     He 


Country  Work  and  Workers  79 

tried  something  else  for  a  while  but  it  didn't  suit  him, 
and  he  took  up  his  old  work  again.  He  declared  that 
it  was  the  "  dirtiest,  nastiest,  hardest "  work  there  was. 
None  of  his  eight  children  would  take  it  up  —  no,  nor 
any  other  young  people. 

"  Children  goes  to  school  now  till  they  gets  to  be 
thirteen  or  fourteen  years  old,"  he  added  deprecat- 
ingly,  "and  they  gets  cunning,  you  know." 

The  shepherd  had  a  dog  with  him,  but  the  dog  did 
not  know  much  and  never  would,  in  his  master's 
opinion  —  "wa'n't  the  right  kind."  But  he  "had  a 
dog  afore  him  that  was  as  sensible  as  a  Christian. 
Seemed  like  he  knew  just  what  I  said.  If  there  was 
some  sheep  way  round  that  hill  you  see  there,  a  mile 
off,  that  dog'd  go  for  'em,  if  I  told  him  to,  and  I 
could  keep  on  with  my  work,  and  he'd  be  comin' 
with  *em  by  and  by.  I  never  had  more'n  to  speak  to 
him  or  make  a  motion  with  my  hand  and  he'd  under- 
stand. I  had  him  ten  year,  but  he  died  last  January. 
I  wouldn't  'a'  felt  it  so  much  if  I'd  lost  one  of  my 
children." 

The  shepherd  said  he  had  two  cousins  in  America, 
William  and  Thomas  Cook.  He  hadn't  heard  from 
them  in  a  great  while,  and  he  had  lost  the  paper  he 
had  their  address  on  and  forgotten  the  name  of  the 
place  where  they  lived.  He  didn't  know  but  I  might 
have  been  acquainted  with  them. 


8o 


Among  English   Hedgerows 


A  few  days  later  I  came  on  a  party  of  sheep-shearers 
at  work  in  a  barn.  The  big  doors  were  open,  and 
the  men  were  snipping  away  on  the  barn  floor  with 


Women  Workers 

their  shining  shears.  The  bay  on  one  side  was  full  of 
panting  sheep  still  unsheared.  On  the  other  side  were 
the  bundles  of  fleeces  and  odds  and  ends  of  farm  tools 
and  rubbish.  When  a  sheep  had  been  relieved  of  its 
coat  it  was  allowed  to  leap  away  to  its  mates  in  the 


Country  Work  and  Workers  8i 

near  field.  The  shearers  work  in  little  bands  of  six  or 
eight  men,  and  go  from  farm  to  farm  to  do  the  work 
through  a  season  that  lasts  rather  over  a  month.  At 
noon  they  went  out  under  a  tree  with  their  baskets  and 
ate  dinner;  and  while  they  lunched  and  gossiped  one 
of  them  cut  a  companion's  hair  with  his  sheep-shears. 

All  the  heaviest  farm  work  is  done  by  men,  but  the 
lighter  field  tasks  are  undertaken  by  women  to  a  con- 
siderable extent,  though  I  believe  these  tasks  are  always 
intermittent  —  never  continued  week  after  week  the 
year  through.  My  first  sight  of  women  workers  was 
on  the  new-ploughed  grounds  of  early  spring.  They 
were  going  over  the  fields  with  forks  and  picking  out 
all  the  witch-grass  roots.  These  they  piled  in  little 
heaps  which  later  were  burned.  Their  working  day 
was  seven  or  eight  hours  long  and  their  pay  a  shilling. 
They  were  picturesque,  but  the  close  view  that  showed 
them  to  be  nearly  all  old,  and  stumpy-figured,  and 
slouchy  in  dress  left  no  room  for  romance. 

Nor  were  the  men  workers  less  rudely  rustic  than 
the  women.  Indeed,  it  seemed  to  me  that  all  the 
English  farm-folk  by  the  time  they  reached  middle 
age  became  what  we  would  call  "  characters."  In  their 
looks  they  grow  knotty  and  gnarled  and  earthy,  and 
this  outward  appearance  is  more  or  less  typical  of 
their  minds.  In  features  the  men  are  strongly  indi- 
vidualized.    No  two  are  alike  —  a  result  in  part  due 


82  Among  English   Hedgerows 

to  the  many  odd  and  old-fashioned  ways  they  have 
of  trimming  and  training  their  beards.  Clothing  is 
quaint,  and  their  heavy  footwear,  added  to  their  labo- 
rious lives,  makes  the  movements  of  all  except  the 
more  youthful  and  vigorous  seem  ungainly. 

As  the  season  advances,  the  women  are  to  be  found 
in  the  hop-gardens  and  in  the  wheat  and  hay  fields. 
Wheat,  or  "  corn,"  as  it  is  called  in  Britain,  is  sown  in 
drills  about  six  inches  apart,  and  as  soon  as  it  gets 
well  started,  the  women  go  through  it  and  hoe  out  the 
weeds. 

In  May,  when  the  hop-gardens  are  bristled  all  over 
with  bare,  newly  set  poles  around  which  the  vines  are 
just  beginning  to  twine,  there  are  pretty  sure  to  be 
two  or  three  women  in  every  such  field,  "  'op-tying," 
as  they  would  say.  This  consists  in  fastening  the 
vines  to  the  poles  so  that  they  will  be  sure  to  climb 
and  not  sprawl  around  on  the  ground.  Most  of  the 
women  wear  wide-brimmed  straw  hats  tied  on  with 
handkerchiefs.  Each  has  a  long  bag  fastened  to  her 
waist  in  which  she  carries  the  green  rushes  that  she 
uses  in  tying.  They  work  very  deftly  though  they 
keep  their  tongues  going  as  fast  as  their  hands. 

Once  in  a  visit  to  a  hop-garden  a  worker  held  her 
tawny  arms  out  toward  me  and  said,  "  I  s'pose  the 
women  don't  get  browned  and  burned  that-a-way  in 
America !     But  we've  always  been  at  this  same  work. 


Country  Work  and  Workers  85 

and  we'll  keep  right  on  at  it  as  long  as  we've  got  a 
breath  left." 

It  seemed  to  me  they  were  doing  the  work  with 
unusual  celerity.  I  said  as  much,  and  the  woman  ex- 
plained that  this  was  because  they  were  paid  for  the 
amount  they  did  and  not  for  their  time  ;  and  she  added 
frankly,  "  If  it  were  day  work  we'd  stop  that  much  to 
talk  the  'ops  wouldn't  get  tied  in  all  summer." 

Just  as  I  was  leaving  the  hop-garden  I  heard  a  tree 
crash  to  the  earth  in  a  near  grove,  and  when  I  turned 
aside  to  learn  the  cause  I  found  several  men  felling 
oaks.  They  did  this  by  sawing  off  the  trunks  low 
down  almost  level  with  the  ground.  The  stumps  left 
were  barely  six  inches  high.  Compared  with  that  the 
two  or  three  foot  stumps  of  America  and  the  great 
gashes  we  make  in  getting  our  trees  down  seem  very 
wasteful.  The  oak  bark  is  sold  to  tanneries  and 
after  a  tree  was  felled  the  men  with  their  axes,  bill- 
hooks, and  other  instruments  stripped  it  off  from  both 
trunk  and  branches  down  to  limbs  not  over  an  inch 
and  a  half  in  diameter. 

The  busiest  seasons  on  the  farm  are  those  of  the 
hay,  grain,  and  hop  harvests.  There  is  employment 
then  for  every  one.  June  is  the  haymaking  month, 
and  its  scenes  ha^e  sometimes  as  much  the  air  of  car- 
nival as  of  labor.  This  is  especially  true  when  the 
early  fields  are  mown  near  the  villages.     On  pleasant 


86 


Among  English  Hedgerows 


evenings  half  the  population  is  out  watching  the  men 
swinging  their  scythes  in  the  slow-fading  light.  The 
children  are  in  the  new-mown  grass  having  a  frolic, 
tumbling  about  and  gathering  up  great  armfuls  to 
throw  at  each  other.  Their  mothers  watch  them  from 
over  the  fence  and  laugh  at  their  haps  and  mishaps. 


Eating  a  "  Tenner 


Country   Work  and  Workers  87 

The  little  ones  get  hot  and  red-faced,  and  some  are 
hurt  and  shed  tears,  but  it  is  not  easy  to  induce  them 
to  start  for  home  before  the  men  stop  work  at  about 
ten  o'clock. 

Most  of  the  mowing  in  the  level  regions  of  England 
is  done  with  a  machine.  Yet  there  are  still  many  old- 
fashioned  farmers  who  cling  to  the  idea  that  a  machine 
leaves  about  as  much  as  it  cuts.  Such  farmers  have  the 
work  done  by  hand  even  if  the  farm  measures  half  a 
thousand  acres.  The  smaller  farmers  often  have  no 
machine  because  they  do  not  feel  they  can  afford  one 
considering  the  amount  they  would  use  it ;  and  on 
most  farms  there  is  a  certain  amount  of  land  so  steep 
or  so  much  ditched  that  machine  cutting  is  not  practi- 
cal. The  mowing  with  scythes  is  done  by  men  who 
travel  in  small  gangs  from  farm  to  farm  throughout 
their  home  region.  As  soon  as  they  finish  for  one 
employer  they  go  to  the  next,  and  so  continue  till  the 
end  of  the  haying  season,  when  they  disband. 

I  came  across  a  party  of  mowers  one  morning  eating 
a  "tenner"  (ten  o'clock  lunch)  under  a  hedge.  In  his 
basket  each  man  had  half  a  loaf  of  bread  and  a  large 
piece  of  cheese  from  which  he  cut  off  such  lumps  as 
his  appetite  demanded.  Each  man  also  had  a  jug  of 
beer  brought  from  home,  and  the  party  had  collec- 
tively a  little  keg  of  ale  that  was  furnished  by  their 
master.     One  of  the  men  went  up  to  the  farmhouse 


88  Among  English   Hedgerows 

for  this  at  about  nine  o'clock  each  morning,  and 
brought  it  back  slung  on  a  stick  over  his  shoulder. 

The  men,  after  they  had  disposed  of  their  bread  and 
cheese,  drank  two  glasses  each  of  the  ale  from  a  horn 
tumbler,  and  smoked  a  pipe  of  tobacco  in  between. 
When  their  half-hour  was  up,  they  all  whetted  their 
broad  blades  and  went  to  work  again.  They  told  me 
that,  in  their  opinions,  mowing-machines  had  had  their 
day,  and  were  destined  everywhere  to  be  more  and 
more  displaced  by  handwork. 

Tedders  and  horserakes  are  much  less  common 
than  with  us  —  particularly  the  former.  Turning 
and  raking  are  largely  done  by  hand,  usually  by  the 
women,  who  also  roll  the  hay  into  tumbles. 

When  the  work  in  the  hay-fields  is  well  under  way 
on  a  big  farm  the  operations  take  on  a  decided  aspect 
of  business  and  bustle.  The  most  typical  haying 
scene  of  this  sort  that  1  witnessed  was  in  the  broad 
acres  of  a  gentleman's  park.  There  were  two  wagons, 
one  always  at  the  rick  unloading,  while  the  other  was 
in  the  field.  Two  horses  were  hitched  tandem  to  each 
wagon,  and  a  ploughboy  accompanied  each  pair  to 
drive  them.  Two  men  were  on  the  load,  three  pitched 
on,  and  two  old  men  with  big  rakes  followed  the  load 
and  gathered  the  scatterings.  At  the  rick  were  two 
men  unloading,  three  on  the  rick  receiving  the  hay 
as  it  was  pitched  up,  and  two  or  three  others  getting 


Country  Work  and  Workers 


89 


drinks  of  beer  out  of  the  bottles  in  their  baskets  that 
lay  under  a  convenient  elm.  Two  old  fellows  with 
faghooks  were  reaping  the  grass  left  by  the  machines 


Whetting  their  Scythes 

along  the  hedges,  two  old  women  and  an  old  man 
were  rolling  up  the  windrows,  and  a  young  fellow 
on  a  horserake  was  going  leisurely  back  and  forth 
across  the  field.  That  makes  twenty  people.  It 
was  a  pretty  sight  —  the  busy  harvest-field  among 
the  great  sturdy  English  elms,  with  the  ivied  walls 
and  tall  chimneys  of  "  the  big  house  "  rising  on  the 
slope  beyond. 


go  Among  English  Hedgerows 

Sometimes  the  "  Squire,"  the  occupant  of  the  big 
house,  comes  into  the  hay-field  and  takes  part  in  the 
work.  He  gets  off  his  coat  and  pitches  on  the  hay 
with  great  gusto  for  perhaps  a  couple  of  hours,  chaffs 
with  the  men,  drinks  beer  with  them,  and  makes  him- 
self as  companionable  as  possible.  The  men  feel  that 
he  is  a  good  fellow  to  condescend  to  work  on  their 
level,  and  it  inclines  them  to  serve  him  faithfully. 
But  it  would  not  do  for  the  Squire  to  work  every  day 
with  them.  That  would  lower  him  at  once  in  their 
estimation.  The  work  is  beneath  him  ;  he  must  do 
it  only  for  fun. 

The  term  "  harvest  time,"  in  England,  means  more 
particularly  that  part  of  summer  when  the  wheat  and 
other  grains  are  garnered.  There  is  a  repetition  then 
of  the  busy  scenes  of  haymaking.  After  the  harvest 
the  farmer  turns  his  pigs  out  "  earshin  "  in  the  stubble 
fields,  where  they  are  allowed  to  roam  six  or  seven 
hours  each  day  till  they  have  picked  up  all  the  stray 
ears  of  grain.  Often  there  are  sixty  or  seventy  pigs 
in  a  drove  with  a  boy  or  two  along  to  "mind"  them. 

Hop-picking  begins  with  the  first  days  of  Septem- 
ber. By  then  the  blossoming  brightness  of  the  earlier 
months  is  past,  the  grain  is  nearly  all  reaped,  the  hay 
harvested,  and  the  fields  are  bare  and  sombre.  Yet 
many  flowers  still  linger  along  the  roadsides,  and  the 
hedges  are  enlivened  by  the  scarlet  of  hips  and  haws. 


mi«"4i9P 

m^r-r^mm 

■HHH||^HHHH| 

*■?* 

m 

w 

,     1 

^ji^ 

Country  Work  and  Workers  93 

There  Is  much  land  newly  ploughed,  and  many  new 
ricks  are  in  the  field  corners  looking  very  tidy  with 
their  roofs  of  fresh  thatch  glistening  in  the  sunlight. 

1  was  eager  to  see  all  that  I  could  of  the  hop  har- 
vest, and  one  day  when  I  was  passing  a  hop  kiln  and 
noticed  smoke  issuing  from  its  squat  chimney,  I 
stopped  to  investigate.  A  small  door  at  one  end  was 
open,  and  I  went  in,  but  I  did  not  stay  long.  Three 
men  in  the  dim  interior  were  feeding  the  fires  with 
charcoal  and  brimstone,  and  the  air  was  so  sulphurous 
I  was  glad  to  hurry  out  to  escape  choking.  I  got 
little  notion  of  the  process  of  hop-drying.  The  men 
had  pointed  to  a  ladder  and  said  I  might  go  upstairs, 
but  I  was  already  getting  anxious  for  a  change  of  air 
and  refused.  Besides,  they  winked  at  each  other  sus- 
piciously, and  I  think,  had  I  gone  up,  they  would  have 
kept  me  there  till  I  tipped  them.  At  any  rate  that  is 
one  of  the  pleasantries  that  the  hop-drier  is  privileged 
to  indulge  with  any  visitor  he  can  catch  in  that  way. 
I  asked  one  of  the  men  who  followed  me  to  the  door 
where  I  could  see  the  hop-picking,  and  he  said,  "  About 
a  mile  to  the  south."  I  questioned  him  whether  I  had 
better  go  around  by  the  road  or  try  a  more  direct  way 
cross-lots.  The  man  replied  in  the  bluff,  rude  manner 
that  one  too  often  finds  among  the  rural  English, 
"  You've  got  legs,  ain't  ye  ^  Go  there  any  way  ye 
want  to." 


94 


Among  English   Hedgerows 


I  found  the  pickers  at  work  in  a  field  that  sloped 
down  into  a  little  valley.  The  poles  were  being 
taken  down  as  fast  as  needed,  and  the  pickers  were 
pulling  off  the  hops  into  great  baskets.  Men,  women, 
and  children  were  all  at  work.  The  old  women  and 
the  grandfathers  were  there,  and  so  were  the  babies, 
tucked  up  in  blankets  and  wraps  and  lying  quite  con- 
tented on  the 
ground  among 
the  shadows  of 
the  festooned 
poles.  It  was  a 
pleasant  scene 
there  amidst  the 
greenery,  nimble 
fingers  flying,  al- 
ways the  voices 
calling  and  the 
hum  of  gossip, 
the  rustic  cos- 
tumes, the  chil- 
dren playing  or 
helping  with  in- 
dustrious clumsi- 

A  Group  of  Hop  pickers  i   •       •        i, 

ness,  and  in  it  all 
the  rustle  of  the  vines  and  the  wholesome  odor  of  the 
hops.     It  makes  a  healthy  out-of-doors  holiday,  and 


Country  Work  and  Workers  95 

the  people  flock  from  far  and  near  into  the  hop  regions 
to  enjoy  it.  When  the  journey  is  short  they  come  in 
great  farm  wagons  with  all  their  bag  and  baggage  pre- 
pared to  cook  their  own  food  and  sleep  in  barns  and 
sheds.  They  shout  and  joke  as  they  go  along  in 
spite  of  the  plodding  slowness  of  the  journey  and  the 
apparent  discomfort  of  the  vehicle.  The  fact  that  no 
one  is  too  young  to  go  is  attested  by  the  presence  of 
one  or  two  baby  carriages  dragging  along  at  the  rear 
of  the  wagon. 

A  vast  army  of  hop-pickers  comes  by  train  from 
London  at  this  time.  They  are  the  scum  of  the 
city,  a  dilapidated  crowd  of  old  and  young  who  arrive 
heavily  loaded  with  their  household  goods,  and  make 
a  very  motley  scene  at  the  railroad  stations,  bowed 
with  their  sacks  and  baskets. 

The  wages  of  a  laborer  in  the  poorer  parts  of  Eng- 
land are  ten  or  twelve  shillings  a  week,  while  in  the 
more  favored  districts  he  is  paid  double  that  amount. 
Work  begins  in  summer  at  six  o'clock.  At  eight  the 
laborer  stops  half  an  hour  for  breakfast,  at  ten  he  eats 
a  lunch,  and  at  noon  takes  an  hour  to  rest  and  eat 
dinner.  His  work  is  done  at  five,  when  he  trudges 
home  to  supper.  Just  before  he  goes  to  bed  he  dis- 
poses of  one  more  lunch,  and  the  day  is  ended. 

A  man  could  hardly  live  and  support  a  family  on 
ten  or   twelve  shillings  a  week    were   it   not   that    in 


96  Among  English  Hedgerows 

summer  he  always  has  a  chance  to  do  "  task  work." 
While  this  lasts,  he  works  extra  hard  and  over  time 
and  earns  six  or  eight  shillings  a  day.  He  will  very 
likely  be  out  at  four  in  the  morning  and  keep  at  it 
till  nine  or  ten  at  night. 

The  extra  wages  a  man  and  his  wife  make  in  summer 
task  work  are  used  to  buy  shoes  and  clothing.  The 
ordinary  wages  are  pretty  much  used  up  in  paying  rent 
and  in  buying  the  daily  necessities  of  food  and  drink. 
The  fare  is  always  rough  and  poor,  and  a  couple  of 
pounds  or  so  of  bacon  is  all  the  meat  a  family  will  eat 
in  a  week.  Few  make  any  provision  for  sickness,  and 
when  sickness  comes,  the  laborer  is  compelled  to  rely 
on  the  parish  doctor  and  parochial  charity. 

Yet  in  spite  of  small  earnings  there  are  a  goodly 
number  among  the  laborers  who  save  money.  With 
some  it  is  a  blind  habit,  with  others  it  is  simply  miser- 
liness, and  with  still  others  it  is  ambition.  One  does 
not  see  much  chance  for  hoarding  on  the  wages  re- 
ceived, but  the  thrifty  are  always  on  the  lookout  to 
save  their  pennies.  Persons  who  receive  parish  help 
are  sometimes  found  to  have  a  considerable  sum  laid 
by  when  they  die. 

Laborers  marry  early.  The  wife  has  usually  been 
in  domestic  service,  and  often  contributes  the  larger 
half  of  the  scanty  ready  money  that  is  spent  in  getting 
the  humble  home  furnishings.  Very  little  is  bought  in 


Country  Work  and  Workers  97 

the  years  that  follow.  A  replenishing  of  blankets  and 
bed  linen,  when  it  takes  place,  is  quite  apt  to  be  from 
the  charities  which  are  distributed  at  Christmas  time. 

It  is  the  rule  rather  than  the  exception  that  the 
laborer's  cottage  is  overcrowded.  Even  when  there 
are  eight  or  nine  children  in  a  family  there  may  be 
no  more  than  two  sleeping  rooms — a  condition  that 
is  plainly  bad  both  morally  and  physically. 


VI 


A    FEW    GYPSIES 


EARLY  in  my  stay  in  England  a  party  of  gypsies 
with  all  their  belongings  passed  through  Sed- 
leigh  village.  I  hurried  to  get  a  picture  of 
them,  and  then  tipped  one  of  the  young  women  of  the 
tribe  with  a  shilling.  I  thought  I  had  a  prize,  but  after- 
wards I  saw  gypsies  often,  and  I  gave  no  more  shilling 
tips.  They  are  not  at  all  uncommon,  and  the  climate 
favors  them,  for  the  winters  are  not  so  severe  but 
that  they  can  keep  travelling  all  the  year  through. 

The  carts  in  which  they  live  are  much  like  those  of 
our  American  gypsies,  but  are  apt  to  be  better  and 
more  elaborate.  Usually  there  are  two  or  three  carts 
in  a  caravan.  The  women  peddle  baskets,  brushes, 
clothespins  and  such  small  wares,  which  they  make 
themselves.  They  are  experts  in  the  art  of  begging 
and  are  supposed  to  do  considerable  petty  stealing. 

At  harvest  and  hop-picking  time  the  gypsies  hire 
out  to  the  farmers.  They  are  not  rated  very  highly 
as  help ;  for  they  are  uncertain  and  given  to  drinking 

98 


A  Few  Gypsies 


99 


and  quarrelling. 
The  more  prosper- 
ous of  them  make 
it  a  business  to  fur- 
nish amusements 
at  fairs  and  fetes, 
and  in  their  wag- 
ons they  carry  all 
the  paraphernalia 
for  swings,  shoot- 
ing-galleries, and 
other  entertain- 
ments of  a  like 
nature. 

One  day  I  came 
across  a  gypsy 
camp  in  a  field 
just  off  the  high- 
way. As  is  usually 
the  case  with  their 
camp-places,  it  was 
on  the  outskirts  of 


Gypsy  Peddlers 


a  village.  The  people  were  a  lazy,  slovenly-looking 
lot.  A  woman  was  washing  some  clothes  in  a  great 
pan  on  the  ground;  two  men  were  spreading  out  a 
square  of  tent  cloth  to  dry  on  the  grass ;  and  others  of 
the  clan  were  loafing  and  smoking  around  a  little  fire. 


lOO  Among  English  Hedgerows 

When  I  began  to  move  on,  about  half  a  dozen 
ragged  children  came  hooting  after  me.  They  said, 
"Give  me  a  penny,  master,"  and,  "I  wish  you  may 
never  want,  my  lucky  gentleman,  sir."  They  were 
true  beggars  from  head  to  heel,  and  they  kept  up 
their  harrying  for  half  a  mile  or  so. 

The  next  gypsy  party  that  I  saw  at  close  quarters 
was  in  the  old  Sussex  town  of  Petworth.  They  had 
camped  on  the  village  green,  which  they  shared  with 
two  or  three  flocks  of  geese  that  wandered  about 
there  and  apparently  made  it  their  headquarters. 
Three  big  covered  wagons  were  established  at  the 
farther  side  of  the  green,  and  several  of  the  gypsy 
horses  were  feeding  near  by.  Close  about  the  carts 
were  a  number  of  men  and  children.  One  of  the  men 
was  cleaning  a  harness,  another  was  weaving  a  basket, 
another  was  asleep  on  the  ground.  The  children  were 
lounging  or  playing.  Two  roosters  and  a  half-dozen 
hens  were  running  familiarly  about  the  wagons,  and 
were  plainly  a  part  of  the  caravan.  The  women  had 
gone  to  the  village  on  a  peddling  and  trading  tour. 
In  response  to  a  question  I  asked,  the  men  said  they 
had  not  determined  when  they  would  leave  Petworth, 
nor  where  they  would  travel  with  their  wagons  next. 

The  spirit  of  unrest  is  inborn,  and  the  gypsies  rarely 
stop  long  at  any  one  place.  When  they  show  an  in- 
clination to  make  their  visit  a  prolonged  one,  they  are 


A  Few  Gypsies  loi 

ordered  to  move  on  by  the  authorities.  Their  reputa- 
tion is  not  such  as  to  make  any  one  anxious  to  have 
them  for  near  neighbors.  They  are  outcasts,  and  have 
not  a  single  friend  in  any  class  from  laborers  up  to 
gentry.  The  latter  have  a  particular  grudge  against 
them,  because  they  are  credited  with  being  great 
poachers. 

A  gypsy  with  a  good  long-legged  dog  behind  him 
is  about  as  undesirable  a  character  in  the  eyes  of  the 
gamekeepers  as  can  be  found.  You  never  know  what 
is  in  a  gypsy's  pot.  It  isn't  always  hedgehog.  A 
gypsy  is  free  to  kill  hedgehogs  wherever  he  finds 
them ;  for  it  is  believed  they  eat  eggs,  which  is  very 
likely  no  truer  than  the  old  belief  among  dairy  keepers, 
that  hedgehogs  sucked  the  cows  when  they  were  lying 
down  in  the  field.  I  heard  of  one  gentleman  who  set 
apart  a  certain  wood  for  the  use  of  the  gypsies  who 
came  into  the  neighborhood  of  his  estate.  They  were 
free  to  use  that  wood  on  condition  they  did  not  tres- 
pass elsewhere.  They  could  cut  tent-pegs,  pick  up 
sticks,  and  catch  anything  they  pleased  there,  but  they 
mustn't  be  seen  on  any  other  part  of  the  estate  under 
penalty  of  being  expelled  altogether. 

However  often  I  saw  the  gypsies,  they  never  lost 
their  picturesque  interest,  and  when  I  chanced  to  over- 
take a  troop  one  day  on  the  road,  I  thought  I  would 
improve   the   opportunity   to   follow   after   and   study 


I02  Among  English   Hedgerows 

their  proceedings.  Accordingly,  I  kept  along  at  the 
rear  of  the  procession  for  two  or  three  miles,  and  I 
suppose  I  was  taken  for  one  of  the  tribe  by  those 
who  met  us.  The  chief  vehicle  of  the  caravan  was  a 
covered  wagon  of  rather  fanciful  construction,  painted 
blue  and  white,  with  a  stovepipe  sticking  up  through 
the  roof.  A  two-wheeled  cart  laden  with  baskets  and 
drawn  by  a  diminutive  pony  followed  behind. 

When  I  first  sighted  the  gypsies,  the  man  who 
drove  the  wagon  was  hacking  off  a  lot  of  grass  under 
a  hedge  with  a  sickle,  and  two  small,  bareheaded  boys, 
armed  with  great  hook-bladed  knives,  were  assisting. 
As  soon  as  they  saw  me  they  gathered  up  the  grass 
and  thrust  it  into  one  of  the  baskets  on  the  pony-cart, 
as  if  in  the  guilty  fear  of  being  detected  in  stealing. 
Then  the  caravan  resumed  its  plodding  progress,  but 
the  two  boys  continued  to  run  along  the  roadside  with 
their  hook-bladed  knives  open  in  their  hands.  They 
were  as  wild-looking  little  boys  as  I  have  ever  seen, 
and  their  appearance  was  the  more  barbaric  by  reason 
of  the  curious  fashion  in  which  their  hair  was  clipped. 
It  was  cut  close  all  over  their  heads  save  for  a  long 
fringe  that  extended  around  the  front  from  ear  to 
ear. 

In  the  open  door  at  the  rear  of  the  wagon  sat  a 
sunny-faced  little  girl.  A  part  of  the  time  she  was 
whittling  with  a  big  knife,  and  the  rest  of  the  time 


DC 


O 


A  Few  Gypsies  105 

visiting  with  one  of  the  vagrant  boys  who  would  cling 
at  intervals  to  the  wagon's  shaky  back  steps.  She 
made  him  pull  bouquets  of  flowers  for  her  by  the 
roadside  which  she  stuck  up  in  holes  in  the  floor. 

At  the  far  end  of  the  wagon  sat  a  woman  who  was 
sewing  in  spite  of  the  jolting  motion.  A  baby  was 
tumbling  about  in  a  bunk  at  her  elbow,  or  creeping 
out  on  a  table  shelf.  Once  it  got  its  arms  round  its 
mother's  neck,  and  then  she  stopped  to  cuddle  and 
kiss  it. 

The  man  sometimes  walked,  but  more  often  he  sat 
on  the  front  of  his  wagon.  He  spent  most  of  his 
time  urging  on  his  horse  in  a  sleepy  way  with  frequent 
cuts  with  his  whip,  but  it  was  all  the  same  to  the 
horse. 

The  cart  behind  was  driven  by  a  boy  older  than 
the  two  who  were  running  about.  This  boy  wore  a 
shapeless  old  hat  and  he  rode  all  the  time.  The 
other  two  were  constantly  jumping  on  and  off,  and  it 
was  a  wonder  how  they  could  do  this  with  the  caravan 
jogging  along  all  the  time,  and  never  tumble  and  get 
run  over. 


VII 


SOME    ENGLISH     PLEASURES 


THE  first  cricket  game  I  attended  was  played 
in  a  great  pasture  field  of  close-cropped  turf 
that  sloped  down  to  a  village  whose  quaint 
roofs  and  stone  church  tower  could  be  seen  peeping 
out  from  among  the  trees  that  overshadowed  them. 
This  field  was  the  scene  of  a  cricket  match  nearly 
every  Saturday  afternoon.  On  its  upper  borders, 
under  an  oak,  was  a  tile-roofed  shed  where  lookers-on 
could  gather. 

The  two  clubs  in  the  contest  that  I  witnessed  were 
from  neighboring  villages.  All  the  members  were 
grown  men,  and  there  were  among  them  a  school- 
master and  two  or  three  of  the  gentry,  including  a 
vicar.  The  rest  were  tradespeople.  Some  of  them 
wore  a  loose  costume  of  white  and  had  on  pads  to 
protect  their  legs,  but  mostly  the  players  were  in 
working  dress. 

At  first  glance  you  might  think  that  you  were 
looking    at    a    baseball   field.      Then   you   noted   the 

io6 


Some   English   Pleasures 


107 


flat-bladed  bats  and  the  three-barred  wickets  at  each 
end  of  the  field  back  of  the  batsman.  Behind  each 
wicket  was  a  man  to  throw  the  ball.  He  swings  it 
out  at  arm's  length  above  his  head,  something  the 
way  girls  throw,  only  not  so  gently  and  timidly.  It 
goes  like  a  cannon-ball  and  is  about  as  comfortable 
to  get  hit  with. 

What  the  batsman  wants  to  do  is  to  give  the  ball  a 
long  rap  so  that  he  and  his  fellow-batsman  down  at 
the  other  end  can  get  some  runs  back  and  forth  be- 
tween the  wickets.  What  the  other  side  wants  to  do 
is  to  have  the  ball  when  it  is  thrown  hit  the  wicket  the 


io8  Among  English  Hedgerows 

batsman  is  protecting,  or  to  catch  a  ball  he  has  batted. 
There  are  eleven  players  on  a  side,  and  every  man 
has  to  be  put  out  before  the  opposition  can  have  an 
inning. 

I  saw  cricket  played  many  times  while  I  was  in 
England,  and  it  seemed  to  me  superior  as  a  national 
game  to  baseball.  I  thought  it  more  spirited  and  that 
there  was  more  mental  stimulus  in  it.  Everybody 
played  the  game,  from  small  boys  to  gray-haired 
grandfathers.  You  would  see  the  children  at  all 
hours  cricketing  in  the  streets  and  on  the  village 
green,  ahd  the  older  lads  practised  every  day  after 
working  hours  in  some  vacant  field,  while  scrub  games 
on  Sedleigh  Common,  to  which  all  the  riffraff  of  the 
region  resorted,  were  the  usual  thing  on  Sunday  after- 
noons. 

Back  of  the  Black  Stag  was  a  garden  and  beyond  the 
garden  was  a  little  grass  field  always  spoken  of,  after  the 
manner  of  the  English,  as  a  "  meadow."  There,  of  an 
evening,  the  young  men  of  the  village  often  gathered 
to  pitch  quoits  in  the  slow-waning  twilight,  and  many 
others  of  the  male  inhabitants  came,  too,  and  stood 
about  looking  on.  Most  of  the  players  were  quite  ex- 
pert, and  it  was  astonishing  how  close  to  the  mark  they 
would  pitch  the  heavy  iron  rings. 

The  ploughboys  sometimes  played  a  game  on  their 
own  account  with  some  old  quoits  in  another  part  of 


o 

to 


Some  English  Pleasures  iii 

the  meadow.  They  had  not  the  strength  or  practice 
to  fire  very  straight,  and  they  kept  up  a  continual 
dodging  to  get  out  of  the  way  of  the  uncertain  flying 
of  the  rings.  They  used  horse  language  in  the  game 
just  as  they  would  at  their  work.  If  Dick  threw  a 
quoit  too  far  to  the  left,  the  others  called  out  to 
him,  "  Gee  woot,  Dick !  "  or  if  too  far  to  the  right, 
"  Maether  ho,  Dick  !  " 

This  Dick  was  a  fat,  brown-tanned,  good-natured 
fellow  whom  I  first  saw  one  Sunday  morning  lying  on 
the  grass  near  a  brook.  His  home  was  close  by  — a 
great  rusty,  old  building  which  had  once  been  the 
"  workus  "  of  the  place.  He  was  barefoot,  and  his 
great  clumsy  shoes  were  propped  up  against  a  near 
stone  wall.  Dick  said  he  had  been  washing  them  in 
the  brook,  and  it  was  plain  he  had  done  the  job 
thoroughly  both  inside  and  out.  When  the  sunlight 
dried  them,  he  was  going  to  black  them. 

One  Friday  evening  there  came  a  load  of  men  from 
a  neighboring  town  to  play  quoits  with  the  Sedleigh 
men.  First  they  had  some  drink  at  the  hotel  bar,  then 
went  down  to  the  field  beyond  the  garden. 

A  crowd  of  men  and  boys  gathered  to  see  the  game. 
Most  stood,  but  as  many  as  could  crowded  on  a  board 
seat  behind  a  bench  where  two  fellows  were  keeping 
tally.  The  ploughboy,  Dick,  watched  the  sport  from 
a  seat  on  a  horse  collar  that  he  was  taking  home  from 


112 


Among  English   Hedgerows 


Ihe  Old  "Workus" 

the  harnessmaker's.  At  the  farther  side  of  the  field 
a  man  was  mowing  with  a  scythe.  Two  small  girls 
came  down  a  lane  and  hung  over  a  gate  to  see  the 
game.  They  were  the  only  feminine  observers.  Nearly 
all  the  men  filled  and  lit  their  pipes  when  they  came 
into  the  field.  On  the  grass  a  little  aside  from  the 
arena  of  contest  was  a  tray  full  of  pitchers  and  glasses, 
and  at  frequent  intervals  some  one  would  take  a  pitcher 
and  two  glasses  and  set  the  beer  circulating  among  the 
players.  Those  who  were  not  numbered  among  the 
quoiters  had  to  visit  the  bar  when  they  got  thirsty. 


Some  English  Pleasures  113 

After  the  game  was  finished  the  whole  party  went 
up  to  the  hotel  and  celebrated  until  ten  o'clock  or  so 
with  drinking,  songs,  and  stories,  and  the  swapping  of 
opinions. 

A  favorite  evening  pastime  of  the  ploughboys  was 
the  "  going  through  a  'orse  collar."  The  boy  who  at- 
tempted this,  put  first  a  foot  through,  then  his  head, 
and  afterward  tried  to  wriggle  his  whole  body  through. 
The  smaller  the  collar,  the  greater  the  glory.  Once 
wedged  in,  the  boy  was  in  very  awkward  shape,  and  if 
he  chanced  to  lose  his  balance,  he  tumbled  about  very 
queerly  and  helplessly. 

Ploughboy  Dick  would  go  through  any  kind  of  a 
collar,  or  try  to,  for  "  tuppence."  He  would  look  at 
a  collar  critically  and  say,  "  I'm  too  big  a  man  for 
he,"  but  if  the  tuppence  was  in  sight,  he  would  sweat 
and  strain  at  it  a  long  time  before  he  would  give  in. 

In  the  summer,  recreation  is  frequently  found  by 
the  villagers  in  attendance  on  a  fete  given  by  some 
local  club.  A  village  must  be  small  indeed  that  does 
not  have  at  least  one  "  club  day." 

An  opportunity  came  after  a  time  to  see  one  of 
these  fetes.  It  was  held  under  the  auspices  of  the 
Foresters'  Club,  in  a  little  meadow  on  the  borders  of 
the  village.  I  had  been  told  that  the  admittance  fee 
was  sixpence,  but  the  committee  of  Foresters  at  the 
gate  charged  me  a  shilling.     This  is  a  way  they  have 


1 14  Among  English  Hedgerows 

in  England  —  gentry  and  strangers,  when  they  are 
recognized  as  such,  are  charged  double  the  regular 
rates.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  sometimes  a  special 
half-price  rate  for  laborers. 

Within  the  enclosing  hedgerows  of  the  field  that  I 
found  myself  in  after  the  Foresters  secured  my  shilling 
was  a  strange  little  town  —  a  movable  Vanity  Fair  —  to 
amuse  the  crowd  and  tempt  all  the  small  coins  out  of 
the  crowd's  pockets.  The  managers  of  the  affair  were 
marching  around  with  their  green  Forester  sashes  over 
their  shoulders,  trying  hard  to  imagine  that  they  were 
in  the  midst  of  a  great  occasion  and  that  they  were 
having  a  grand  good  time.  Numbers  of  children 
were  drifting  about  intent  on  getting  all  the  free  fun 
they  could  in  looking  on  at  such  excitements  as  the 
place  afforded,  and  in  visiting  the  various  booths  and 
making  calculations  as  to  how  to  make  their  "  ha'- 
pence "  go  farthest.  Besides  these,  there  were  various 
lads  and  men,  a  sprinkling  of  women,  and  a  gayly 
dressed  band  that  was  tooting  away  on  a  stand  in 
the  midst  of  the  field.  Some  women  and  children 
looked  over  a  rear  fence  at  the  fun,  and  a  policeman 
stood  near  and  visited  with  them  and  saw  that  none 
of  them  climbed  over.  All  about  the  borders  of  the 
field  were  the  shooting-galleries,  cheap-Jacks'  booths, 
lunch  and  sweets  stands,  swings  and  the  steam  round- 
about, and  the  wagons  of  the  gypsies  who  owned  all 


Some  English  Pleasures 


"5 


this  varied  apparatus.  It  seemed  to  me  the  show  was 
rusty,  tawdry,  and  offensive,  and  I  did  not  care  to 
linger  long. 

It  is  on  fete  days  and  other  holidays  that  one  sees 
lovers  out  in  force.  In  the  homes  of  the  laborers  and 
in  those  of  many  of  the  tradespeople  there  is  no  spare 
room  in  which  sweethearts  can  spend  their  evenings 
together,  and  few  young  men  can  afford  to  hire  a  team, 


The  Swings  at  a  Fete 


so  that  most  of  the  courting  is  done  in  evening  walks, 
or  in  strolls  on  holidays  and  Sunday  afternoons.     Fairs 


II 6  Among  English  Hedgerows 

are  red-letter  days  to  lovers.  The  young  men  and  the 
young  women  are  sure  to  be  on  hand,  and  the  former 
make  it  a  point  to  advance  their  interests  and  show 
their  affection  by  buying  the  girls  "  fairings." 

Among  the  minor  English  pleasures  I  think  an 
auction,  or  "  sale,"  as  it  is  called,  is  worthy  of  special 
mention.  In  the  smaller  villages,  at  least,  it  takes 
high  rank  among  the  excitements  within  easy  reach. 
When  the  chance  came  one  day  to  attend  a  typical 
farm  sale,  I  did  not  fail  to  be  on  hand.  It  was  held 
in  a  green  field  next  the  farmhouse  that  was  being 
displenished.  The  carts,  machines,  furniture,  etc., 
were  arranged  in  a  long  line  near  the  hedge.  Among 
the  other  things  were  two  coops  of  fowls  and  a  hur- 
dled pen  of  black  pigs  which  were  industriously  en- 
gaged in  rooting  up  the  fresh  turf  The  horses, 
while  awaiting  their  turn,  were  led  or  ridden  about 
the  field. 

A  big  crowd  was  present,  of  farmers,  loafers,  and 
village  women  with  various  small  children  tagging 
after  them.  I  thought  only  a  few  were  there  to  buy. 
Mostly  they  came  to  see  the  sights,  to  be  entertained, 
and  to  have  something  to  talk  about.  The  people 
gathered  thickest  about  the  auctioneer,  and  always  the 
crowd  had  a  frayed  edge  of  laborers'  wives  with  babies 
in  their  arms.  The  women  seemed  to  find  the  pigpen 
rather  attractive*,    and  a  little  group   of  them   hung 


Some  English  Pleasures 


117 


about  some  bundles  of  bedding  as  if  they  had  hopes 
it  might  be  knocked  down  to  them  at  a  bargain  when 
the  time  came. 

The  auctioneer  did  the  selling  in  a  rapid,  business- 
like way,  and  wasted  no  breath  in  jokes  or  in  work- 


Going  Home  from  the  Sale 

ing  up  enthusiasm.  This  seriousness  I  was  told  was 
because  farming  was  in  a  bad  way,  prices  had  to  be 
low,  and  the  matter  wouldn't  bear  levity. 

After   the   sale   the   roads  were  enlivened  in  every 
direction  with  the  people  on  foot  and  in  carts,  taking 


ii8  Among  English  Hedgerows 

home  their  purchases.  The  centre  of  one  group  that 
interested  me  was  an  old  woman  with  a  bed-tick  rolled 
up  on  a  wheelbarrow  which  she  trundled  along  to 
her  cottage,  with  all  her  women  friends  following  her. 
Those  who  had  not  bought  were  just  as  cheerful  as 
any  of  the  others ;  for  they  had  seen  and  heard  a  vast 
deal,  and  were  as  full  of  chat  as  they  could  hold. 


VIII 

A    SPRINGTIME    WALK 

ON  an  afternoon  in  the  middle  of  May,  busi- 
ness called  me  from  the  village  where  I 
was  stopping,  to  a  town  about  four  miles 
distant.  The  day  was  pleasant,  and  I  made  the  jour- 
ney on  foot,  with  a  small  village  boy  for  company. 
The  boy  had  the  red  cheeks  common  among  the  Eng- 
lish children.  His  clothing,  including  his  cap,  was 
of  brown  corduroy,  and  he  wore  heavy-soled,  stubby 
shoes,  the  bottoms  of  which  were  studded  with  broad- 
topped  nails.  He  was  bound  to  make  his  mark  in 
the  world  with  those  shoes ;  indeed,  he  made  a  good 
many  marks  every  time  he  put  a  foot  down.  On  his 
left  arm  he  wore  a  band  of  crape.  This  indicated 
that  he  had  recently  lost  a  relative. 

He  was  a  shy,  good-mannered  little  fellow.  At 
first  acquaintance  he  would  hardly  say  "yes"  and 
"  no  **  in  answer  to  questions,  but  this  extreme  shy- 
ness did  not  last.      He  was  very  good  to  give  infor 

mation  about  the  things  that  attracted  my  attention, 

119 


I20  Among  English  Hedgerows 

and  it  is  of  the  flowers  and  birds  we  saw  on  our  walk, 
and  of  the  boy's  comments  on  them  that  I  now  write. 

The  way  led  mostly  along  a  narrow,  winding  road, 
hemmed  in  by  hedges,  through  a  farming  region  of 
wide  fields,  with  once  in  a  while  a  patch  of  wood- 
land. The  hedges  that  were  low  and  well  trimmed 
were  dense  and  green,  for  such  will  not  blossom 
except  for  now  and  then  a  lone  cluster ;  but  the 
hedges  that  were  uncared  for  and  grew  tall  and  loose 
were  full  of  the  white  hawthorn  blossoms.  The  haw- 
thorn is  in  flower  all  the  month  of  May,  and  is  often 
called  "  may  "  in  consequence.  If  a  hawthorn  bush 
is  allowed  to  grow  in  an  open  field,  as  frequently  hap- 
pens, it  comes  in  time  to  be  a  large  tree,  very  like  an 
apple  tree,  only  more  gnarled  and  much  thicker  in  its 
branches. 

English  roadsides  in  the  warmer  months  are  almost 
everywhere  luscious  with  stout-growing  grasses,  flowers, 
and  weeds.  There  is  always  a  sparkle  of  color  in  the 
green,  and  you  never  need  go  far  to  gather  a  wild 
bouquet  of  considerable  variety.  Dandelions  were 
numerous  to-day,  and  besides  their  yellow  blossoms 
there  were  tall  stalks  white  with  winged  seeds.  Some 
of  the  green  roadside  ditches  which  I  looked  down 
into,  where  a  little  stagnant  water  lay  in  the  bottom, 
were  twinkled  all  over  with  tiny  blue  forget-me-nots. 

Daisies,  the  low,  delicate   British  variety,  with  tints 


Spring  in  a  Village  Field 


A  Springtime  Walk  123 

of  pink  on  the  under  side  of  their  white  petals,  were 
everywhere,  and  a  little  flower  called  birdseye,  some- 
thing like  the  forget-me-not,  but  several  times  larger, 
was  common. 

The  grasses  in  forward  spots  had  already  begun  to 
tassel  into  blossoms,  and  the  farmers  would  begin 
haying  in  two  weeks  more.  We  passed  a  clump  of 
willows  and  found  that  the  pussies  were  getting  coarse 
and  seedy,  and  the  fuzz  was  blowing  away.  The 
purple  vetch  was  beginning  to  blossom  in  the  grass 
tangles  of  the  roadside. 

Some  of  the  wheatfields,  or,  as  the  English  say, 
"  cornfields,"  were  yellow  with  charlock  blossoms. 
The  boy  said  of  the  charlock,  "  It's  one  o'  the  worst 
weeds  there  is.  It  grows  in  the  corn  and  smothers 
it.     They  has  to  hoe  it  out." 

He  showed  me  a  pretty  white  flower  which  he  said 
was  "cuckoo's  eyes,"  though  "they  calls  'em  coach- 
men's buttonholes,  too,"  and  he  pointed  out  some 
bright  red  flowers  on  a  coarser,  taller  stalk  that  he 
called  robin's  eyes.  These  are  spoken  of  also  as 
Robin  Hoods. 

Two  varieties  of  nettles  grew  along  the  hedges. 
There  was  a  great  deal  of  the  rank,  prickly  sort,  which 
they  call  stinging  nettles,  and  a  gentler  kind  with  at- 
tractive hooded  blossoms  that  were  sometimes  yellow, 
sometimes  white.     These  blossoming  nettles  did  not 


124  Among  English  Hedgerows 

have  any  poisonous  prickles  on  them  and  were  called 
blind  nettles. 

"  People  says  stinging  nettles  don't  sting  this  month," 
remarked  my  boy. 

"Well,  but  they  do,  don't  they?"  was  my  re- 
sponse. 

"Yes,  but  they  say,  'You  try  —  they  won't  sting 
this  month,'  and  you  try  and  get  stung,  and  then  they 
say,  '  Well,  they  won't  sting  this  month,  but  they  will 
sting  you.'  " 

"  BHnd  nettles,"  the  boy  continued,  "  they  say  you 
must  shut  your  eyes  when  you  pick.  If  you  don't, 
you'll  get  your  arm  broke." 

On  the  nettles  we  found  several  snails,  and  my  com- 
panion picked  up  one  of  them  and  remarked,  "  The 
boys  says  verses  to  snails." 

"  What  verses?  "  I  asked. 

«  Oh,  Hke,  — 

Snaily  bailey,  poke  out  your  'cm. 
Or  else  the  butcher  will  kill  you. 

Then  if  the  snail  won't,  the  boys  kill  un.  Another 
they  says  is, — 

Snail,  snail,  put  out  your  'orn. 
Father  and  mother  are  dead. 
Your  little  children  outside  the  back  door 
Are  cryin'  for  barley  bread." 


A  Springtime  Walk  125 

We  heard  a  bird  in  the  hedge,  and  the  boy  tried 
to  get  a  sight  of  it  as  it  hopped  and  flitted  through 
the  tangle  of  twigs.  "  I  think  that's  a  tompeter,"  he 
said.  "  He's  a  hartful  bird.  You  can't  catch  'em  and 
you  can't  hit  'em.  You  c'n  throw  right  straight  at 
'em,  and  they  ain't  there." 

Once  the  boy  pointed  out  a  bird  he  said  was  a 
thrush  or  stormcock.  "  They  calls  it  that,"  he  ex- 
plained, "  because  they  says  when  the  stormcock  sings 
there  be  wet  weather  comin'." 

We  saw  a  robin  flying  across  a  field,  and  the  boy 
said  he  had  always  heard  that  — 

Robins  and  wrens 
Be  God's  friends, 

and  he  afiirmed  that  the  boys  never  rob  the  nests  of 
these  birds.  The  belief  is  that  a  boy  who  steals  a 
robin's  or  a  wren's  egg  will  shortly  get  an  arm  or  a 
leg  broken. 

English  boys  like  to  follow  along  the  hedges  and 
hunt  for  bird's-nests.  In  the  spring  they  are  fond  of 
eating  such  eggs  as  they  can  discover.  But  if  a  boy 
happens  on  four  eggs  in  a  nest,  he  has  a  fear  that  the 
bird  has  finished  laying  and  begun  sitting.  He  there- 
fore blows  out  a  yolk  in  the  palm  of  his  hand  to  see 
whether  it  is  suitable  for  eating  or  not.  When  he 
finds  no  more  than  one  or  two  eggs,  he  sucks  them 


126  Among  English  Hedgerows 

without  any  preliminary  experiments.  A  boy  who 
does  not  fancy  raw  eggs  will  take  them  home  to  have 
them  boiled. 

This  stealing  of  eggs  seems  ruthless  and  unfeeling, 
but   I    noticed   that   when   the   children  found  young 


Planting 

birds  in  a  nest  they  always  showed  considerable  ten- 
derness. "  Don't  hurt  un,"  they  would  say  to  one 
another. 

Our  footsteps  as  the  village  boy  and  I  tramped 
along  this  May  day  sometimes  disturbed  a  pair  of 
partridges  feeding  just  over  the  hedge,  and  sent  them 


A  Springtime  Walk  127 

whirring  away  across  the  fields.  We  heard  pheasants 
give  their  startling  double  crow  of  warning  in  the 
woods  and  a  cuckoo's  mellow  calling  far  away. 

"  That's  a  landrail  you  hear  whistlin'  now,"  said  the 
boy.  "  But  you  can't  tell  where  he  is.  He  keeps 
changin'  around,  and  when  you  hears  him  in  one  place 
he's  somewhere  else." 

We  saw  a  whitethroat  and  later  another  bird  in  an 
oak,  of  which  the  boy  said,  "  I  think  that's  a  yellow- 
hammer,  but  you  can't  always  tell  them  from  a  white- 
throat  unless  you  sees  'em." 

"  There's  a  dishwasher,"  said  the  boy,  pointing  out 
a  black  and  white  bird  ahead  of  us  in  the  roadway. 
"  You  watch  him  when  he  flies  and  then  you'll  see 
why  they  calls  him  that." 

The  bird  took  wing  in  a  dipping  flight  along  the 
ground,  and  the  boy  was  sure  that  showed  the  reason 
of  its  name,  but  I  thought  the  name  came  from  an 
odd  way  it  had  of  bobbing  up  and  down  after  it 
alighted. 

There  were  butterflies  fluttering  about,  and  some- 
times we  came  on  a  burly  bumblebee  buzzing  among 
the  flowers.  Some  of  the  latter  were  black  and  white, 
some  black  and  yellow.  The  boy  called  them  dumble- 
doors.  Once  we  saw  a  peewit,  also  called  the  lapwing 
or  plover.  However,  peewit  is  its  name  among  the 
country  folk  and  "  peewit !  "  is  what  the  bird  says  when 


128  Among  English   Hedgerows 

it  sings.  Peewits  are  large,  round-winged,  clumsy-look- 
ing birds  and  have  a  flopping,  uncertain  flight.  "  They 
always  keeps  playin'  and  hollerin',"  said  my  boy. 
"  They  builds  their  nests  in  the  long  corn  and  'ay." 

When  we  passed  a  group  of  farm  buildings  we  saw 
sparrows  busy  about  the  roofs  and  swallows  flitting 
along  the  hedges. 

"There's  one  o'  those  swallows  builds  at  our  house," 
said  the  boy.  "  He  makes  a  nest  every  year  under 
our  bedroom  window  and  breeds  young  ones  there. 
You  c'n  put  your  hand  out  and  touch  the  nest." 

In  the  fields  we  sometimes  observed  a  flock  of 
blackbirds  flying  here  and  there  in  their  uneasy  feed- 
ing, and  in  the  groves  we  heard  the  pigeons  cooing. 
"  I  had  two  pigeons,"  the  boy  remarked,  "  but  one 
of  'em's  gone  away.  I  don't  know  but  what  he  might 
'a'  got  shot.  That's  the  best  one  that's  gone  away, 
too  —  the  one  what  lays  the  eggs." 

When  we  saw  some  rooks  hovering  about  a  field 
I  asked  the  boy  about  rook  pie.  He  seemed  not  to 
know  much  about  that  particular  dish,  but  he  said, 
"  Some  likes  sparrow  pie  and  some  likes  hedgehog 
pie  and  some  likes  squirrels  pie.  I  likes  apple 
pie." 

We  saw  and  heard  many  skylarks  making  their 
ascents  and  descents  through  the  air  and  throwing 
down  their  songs  to  us.     "  I  do  like  to  hear  them," 


A  Springtime  Walk  129 

said  the  boy.  "  I  read  a  story  about  a  skylark  in  a 
book.  I  got  the  book  in  the  Band  of  'Ope.  'Twas 
a  haypenny.  Sometimes  when  they  sings  they  goes 
way  up  out  of  sight,  sir." 

The  sun  was  now  almost  at  the  setting  point,  and 
the  town  we  journeyed  to  was  just  ahead. 


IX 

AN    ACQUAINTANCE    ON    THE    ROAD 

AN  hour  later  I  was  through  with  my  business 
in  the  town,  and  the  boy  and  I  trudged  along 
-  in  company  on  our  way  home.  But  we  had 
not  gone  far  when  along  came  an  old  gentleman  in 
a  cart  drawn  by  a  little  white  horse,  and  he  asked  us 
to  ride. 

We  accepted  the  invitation,  though  when  we  were 
in,  our  added  weight  threw  the  cart  backward  on  its 
two  wheels  out  of  balance,  and  it  sometimes  looked 
when  we  were  going  up  hill  as  if  we  would  lift  the 
little  horse  off  its  feet.  The  evening  was  well  ad- 
vanced and  a  half-moon  was  shining  dimly  through 
the  filmy  clouds.  It  was  just  the  evening  to  make 
one  dozy  and  meditative.  Whether  it  was  that  or 
something  else,  certain  it  was  that  our  driver's  mood 
was  very  leisurely,  and  he  let  the  little  white  horse 
walk  nearly  the  whole  distance. 

The  man  was  a  farmer,  Copley  by  name,  and  when 
I  asked  him  if  it  was  true,  as  most  said,  that  farming 

130 


An  Acquaintance  on  the  Road 


131 


in  England  was  no  longer  profitable,  he  replied  that 
in  his  own  case  he  made  it  pay.  He  thought,  too, 
that  all  the 
old  -  fashioned 
farmers  who 
were  prudent 
and  supervised 
things  closely 
them  selves 
and  did  not 
try  to  be  mod- 
ern and  stylish 
made  money. 
As  for  himself, 
he  went  out 
and  worked  in 
the  fields  with 
his  men,  but 
most  farmers, 
nowadays,  did 
not  touch  the 
work  them- 
selves, but 
rode      around 

Work  in  the  Pantry 

on     horseback 

and    oversaw.     Then    their   daughters   wanted    to   be 

ladies  and  would  not  touch  a  dish  to  wash  it  or  do 


132  Among  English   Hedgerows 

any  other  real  work.  "  No,"  he  added  regretfully, 
"  you  never  see  a  farmer's  daughter  now  going  out 
to  milk  with  her  skirts  tucked  up  and  a  three-legged 
stool  under  her  arm." 

Mr.  Copley  believed  that  one  reason  for  his  success 
in  farming  where  others  failed  lay  in  the  fact  that  he 
did  not  visit  the  publics.  Still,  he  found  it  necessary 
on  the  long  summer  days  to  have  his  home-brewed 
beer  regularly.      He  found  it  strengthening. 

But  the  subject  that  lay  nearest  Farmer  Copley's 
heart  was  religion,  and  it  was  on  that  topic  he  dwelt 
most  as  we  drove  along  through  the  moonlit  mystery 
of  the  night.  Next  Sunday  he  was  to  preach  at  his 
chapel.  I  asked  him  if  he  wrote  out  what  he  was  to 
say  beforehand. 

"  No,"  said  he,  "  and  I  don't  even  think  about  it." 
He  considered  it  wrong  to  write  out  anything.  The 
Lord  had  promised  in  Scripture  to  put  words  in  your 
mouth,  and  to  write  a  sermon  was  as  much  as  to  say 
that  your  thoughts  were  better  than  the  Lord's  were. 
He  often  did  not  know  two  minutes  before  he  began 
what  he  was  going  to  talk  about.  Once  he  had  in 
mind  a  certain  passage  of  Scripture  for  a  text  and 
when  he  got  up  he  couldn't  think  of  it.  Instead, 
there  came  to  his  mind  the  words,  "  Not  all  that  say 
unto  me,  '  Lord,  Lord,'  shall  enter  into  the  kingdom 
of  heaven,"  and  he  spoke  from  that.     The  idea  of  his 


An  Acquaintance  on  the  Road  133 

discourse  as  he  expounded  this  text  was  that  a  prayer, 
to  be  heard,  must  come  from  the  heart.  "  Lots  o' 
prayers  never  get  any  higher'n  the  ceiling  of  the  room 
they  was  spoke  in.  One  woman  that  was  to  the 
meetin'  that  Sunday  come  and  talked  to  me  after- 
wards. What  I'd  spoke  had  displeased  the  old  gal. 
She  said  she  wa'n't  comin'  to  hear  me  no  more — I 
condemned  people  too  much." 

Mr.  Copley  thought  that  the  woman  that  kept  the 
upper  public  house  in  Sedleigh  was  "under  conviction," 
but  did  not  declare  herself  for  Christ  because  she  was 
not  willing  to  give  up  her  business. 

He  remembered  the  time  and  place  and  all  the  cir- 
cumstances of  his  own  conversion.  "  I  could  pick  out 
the  spot  where  the  change  come  over  me  and  the  Lord 
spoke  to  me  and  said,  '  I  am  the  way  and  the  Hfe '  as 
easy  as  I  can  p'int  out  to  you  that  little  black  spot 
side  o'  the  road  on  ahead  there." 

He  was  a  nice  sort  of  primitive  farmer,  and  I  en- 
joyed the  ride  very  well  and  was  a  little  sorry  when 
we  reached  the  hotel  where  the  boy  and  I  got  out 
while  Mr.  Copley  drove  on  into  the  darkness. 

At  parting,  Mr.  Copley  had  urged  me  to  visit  him 
at  Griston  Farm.  He  said  he  would  tell  "  the  Mis- 
sus "  to  invite  me  in,  provided  he  was  in  the  fields 
when  I  called,  and  I  was  to  stay  and  have  tea  with 
them.      The  farmer's   invitation    was    not    forgotten, 


134 


Among  English  Hedgerows 


and   a  week   later   I    started   out   to  walk  to   Griston 
Farm,  two   miles   distant   beyond   Noll's   Hill.     The 


A  Farmhouse 


day,  early,  had  been  dim  and  chilly  with  a  fog,  but 
the  fog  had  melted  away,  and  the  afternoon  was 
bright  and  warm.  The  grass  in  the  meadows  was 
getting  long  and  wavy,  the  clover  was  in  blossom,  a 
gentle  wind  blew,  and  nature  was  full  of  dreamy  sum- 
mer charm.  I  followed  a  crooked  lane  that  led  up- 
ward to  the  wooded  crown  of  Noll's  Hill,  and  then 
continued  on  down  into  a  beautiful  tree-dotted  valley. 
Here  was  Griston  Farmhouse.      It  was  a  good  deal  or 


An  Acquaintance  on  the  Road  135 

a  mansion  —  wide  and  high,  and  many-chimneyed  — 
standing  well  back  from  the  road  on  a  grassy  terrace. 

At  one  end  of  the  house  was  the  farmyard  gate, 
with  a  big  dog  on  either  side  in  front  of  his  kennel. 
The  dogs  barked  at  me  and  tugged  savagely  at  their 
chains,  and  offered  to  eat  me  up  if  I  would  step 
within  reach.  They  reminded  me  of  the  chained  lions 
in  "  Pilgrim's  Progress."  I  went  inside  the  yard  and 
followed  a  path  to  a  rear  door.  By  the  pathside  was 
another  kennel  and  another  chained  dog,  whose  mouth 
was  watering  for  a  bite  of  me,  and  I  found  a  fourth 
dog  on  guard  at  the  back  entrance,  who  cast  longing 
looks  in  my  direction.  I  began  to  wish  I  had  not 
come. 

A  rap  at  the  door  brought  Mr.  Copley  himself,  who 
took  me  to  the  kitchen  —  and  such  a  place  I  was 
never  in  before !  It  was  a  big  room  and  fairly  high. 
A  delightful  window,  wide  and  many-paned  looked 
toward  the  road,  and  a  smaller  window,  high  up,  broke 
the  wall  opposite.  At  the  back  of  the  room  was  a 
great  dresser  with  its  generous  array  of  colored  crockery 
and  silverware. 

But  the  thing  I  saw  first  and  was  most  amazed  by 
was  the  fireplace.  Half  that  side  of  the  room  was 
lost  in  its  black  cavern.  The  fire,  with  its  great  and- 
irons, and  hooks,  and  pots,  occupied  only  the  central 
part  of  the  fireplace,  and  left  room  at  each  side  for  a 


136  Among  English  Hedgerows 

chimney-corner  seat  right  under  the  gloomy  flue  that 
opened  above. 

Within  the  flue,  on  a  level  with  the  second  story,  a 
little  chamber  opened  out  to  one  side  that  had  to  be 
climbed  to  from  the  fireplace.  The  farmer  lit  a  splinter 
of  wood  and  held  it  high  over  his  head  and  by  its  light 
I  saw  a  dim  recess  in  which  were  hung  many  full-length 
sides  of  bacon  curing.  Just  below  the  kitchen  ceiling 
was  suspended  a  heavy  wooden  bacon  rack,  on  which 
the  pork  would  be  laid  after  the  curing  was  done,  to 
await  the  time  when  it  would  be  needed  for  use. 

I  sat  down  to  tea  with  the  family  at  the  kitchen 
table,  and  afterward  had  a  farther  look  about  the  place. 
Most  of  the  rooms  had  been  modernized,  but,  besides 
the  kitchen,  there  was  a  latticed-windowed  pantry,  and 
a  back  room  that  were  as  ancient  as  one  could  wish. 
This  last  adjoined  the  kitchen,  with  which  it  was  con- 
nected by  a  heavy  oak  door.  The  back  room  was  on  a 
lower  level  than  the  rest  of  the  house,  and  I  descended 
to  its  flagstone  flooring  by  a  flight  of  broad  steps. 
Then  I  had  before  me  another  cavernous  fireplace, 
hung  about  with  shining  pots  and  pans ;  and  a  me- 
diaeval hired  girl,  who  looked  as  if  she  had  not  combed 
her  hair  of  late  years,  was  sweeping  up  the  hearth. 
The  room  was  high  and  big,  the  beams  were  fully 
exposed  in  the  ceiling,  a,nd  numbers  of  great  fire- 
blackened  kettles  and  worm-eaten  benches  were  scat- 


A  Corner  in  a  Farmhouse  Interior 


An  Acquaintance  on  the  Road  139 

tered  about.  The  apartment  in  every  way  savored 
delightfully  of  antiquity,  and  its  doubtful  odor  made  its 
connection  with  the  remote  past  still  more  emphatic. 

As  a  whole  the  farmhouse  was  a  queer  tangle  of 
many  rooms  on  different  levels  and  of  varying  heights. 
In  some  of  them  you  needed  to  be  short  of  stature 
or  you  would  bump  your  head,  while  others  were  as 
high  and  airy  as  anyone  could  desire.  I  not  only  saw 
all  there  was  of  the  house  above  ground,  but  descended 
into  the  cellar.  It  was  a  low,  little  cavern  only  ten  or 
fifteen  feet  square,  where  were  stored  potatoes  and 
other  vegetables.  A  cupboard  stood  on  one  side  with 
some  jars  of  preserves  on  the  shelves,  and  on  the  cellar 
floor  was  a  great  earthen  basin  that  had  as  much  as  a 
half-bushel  of  eggs  preserved  in  it  in  lime  water  wait- 
ing for  prices  to  go  up. 

Farmhouses  nearly  all  have  cellars,  though  not  very 
capacious  ones.  Cottages  have  no  cellars  whatever. 
There  is  not  the  same  need  for  them  that  we  have,  for 
in  England  they  do  not  have  our  extremes  of  heat  and 
cold.  Yet  cellars  are  desirable,  and  the  main  reason 
why  they  do  without  them  is  the  expense.  They 
would  have  to  dig  a  hole,  put  in  masonry,  and  build 
a  wooden  floor  instead  of  the  brick  or  stone  one  that 
is  usual  in  the  lower  story.  A  little  back  shed  has 
to  take  the  place  of  a  cellar  in  the  cottager's  home. 

When  I  prepared  to  return  to  Sedleigh  Mr.  Copley 


I40  Among  English  Hedgerows 

came  outside  with  me  and  we  made  a  tour  of  the  farm- 
house surroundings.  Close  at  one  side  of  the  house 
was  a  little  enclosure  which  Mr.  Copley  spoke  of  as 
"the  orchard,"  where  were  a  dozen  apple  trees  crowded 
with  blossoms.  Adjoining  this  was  the  trim  garden 
with  narrow  paths  of  turf  threading  it  here  and  there, 
and  at  "the  bottom"  of  the  garden  by  the  wall  were 
a  number  of  queer,  straw-covered  beehives.  Nearly 
all  the  farmers  and  tradespeople  keep  bees,  and  their 
housing  both  in  itself  and  in  its  surroundings  is  usu- 
ally very  interesting.  Modern  hives  are  the  excep- 
tion. The  low  domes  of  straw  or  rushes  woven  by 
the  gypsies  are  the  rule,  and  these  are  apt  to  be 
protected  from  wind  and  weather  by  an  overlaying 
of  broken  earthen  pots,  old  blankets,  and  other  rub- 
bish, or  by  a  thatch  of  straw.  The  habitations  thus 
elaborated  are  very  picturesque,  and  as  the  bees  seem 
satisfied,  I  suppose  they  are  all  right. 

In  the  largest  thatched  shed  back  of  the  Griston 
Farmhouse  was  the  well.  The  apparatus  for  drawing 
the  water  was  most  remarkable.  At  the  side  of  the 
well  was  an  enormous  wooden  wheel  fully  twelve  feet 
high,  and  its  inner  rim  was  a  path  that  the  drawer- 
of-water  walked  to  make  the  wheel  revolve  and  haul 
up  the  bucket.  As  the  wheel  turned  the  rope  wound 
up  on  the  heavy  beam  which  was  the  wheel's  axis. 
The  well   was  a  hundred   feet  deep.      To   raise  the 


A  Beehive 


An  Acquaintance  on  the   Road  143 

bucket  to  the  surface  made  for  Mr.  Copley  a  five 
minutes'  walk,  while  his  wife,  who  was  lame  and 
slow,  had  to  spend  fully  fifteen  minutes.  The  dis- 
tance walked  was  probably  close  to  one-third  of  a 
mile,  and  the  only  relieving  feature  of  the  situation 
was  that  the  wooden  bucket  was  big  enough  to  bring 
up  rather  more  than  half  a  barrel  of  water  at  each 
drawing. 


THE    HOME    OF    THE    PILGRIMS 

MY  first  sight  of  London  was  after  a  long 
sojourn  in  the  beautiful  English  country, 
and  the  change  to  city  grime  and  turmoil 
was  far  from  agreeable.  It  was  noon  when  I  got  off 
the  cars  at  Waterloo  Station.  I  crossed  the  Thames 
and  wandered  about  through  the  great  business 
thoroughfares.  The  day  was  dull  and  misty  and 
there  were  occasional  black  gatherings  of  clouds  that 
threatened  thunderstorms.  London  was  even  dimmer 
than  usual  with  smoke  and  haze.  You  could  smell 
the  burning  coal,  and  the  sky  looked  murky  and  hot. 
I  had  laid  my  plans  to  spend  several  days  in  the  city, 
but  the  big  town,  as  I  saw  it,  seemed  so  dingy  and 
commonplace,  and  there  was  so  much  of  crowds  and 
of  noise,  that  I  changed  my  mind  and  toward  evening 
took  a  train  that  carried  me  northward. 

As  soon  as  the  roar  and  confusion  of  the  city  were 
left  behind,  the  delightful ness  of  the  country  reasserted 
itself.     The  views  from  the  car  window  were  charm- 

144 


The  Home  of  the  Pilgrims  I45 

ing.  It  was  late  in  April,  and  the  fields  were  green 
and  luscious,  the  new  leaves  were  pricking  out  of  their 
buds,  the  little  gardens  had  a  slick,  freshly  planted 
look,  and  here  and  there  in  them  were  vegetables 
already  well  started. 

All  the  way  we  went  through  a  low,  rolling  country, 
every  foot  of  it  under  careful  cultivation.  We  passed 
farms,  and  villages,  and  mansions  lying  far  off  across 
the  fields,  and  at  times  had  a  chance  to  look  down  on 
a  little  town  that  huddled  its  red-tiled  roofs  in  some 
hollow  and  wreathed  the  air  above  with  hundreds  of 
blue  and  vapory  smoke  columns  rising  from  the  chim- 
ney pots  with  which  such  places  fairly  bristle.  But 
the  newest  sight  to  me  was  an  occasional  windmill 
standing  ghostly  in  the  twilight  of  the  hazy  distance. 
By  and  by  it  became  too  dark  to  see  things  outside 
and  it  grew  more  chilly,  and  the  car  windows  misted 
over. 

My  destination  was  Bawtry,  in  northern  Notting- 
hamshire, which  I  reached  in  the  late  evening.  The 
attraction  that  brought  me  thither  was  the  fact  that 
the  immediate  neighborhood  had  been  the  home  of 
the  first  Pilgrim  settlers  of  New  England. 

Bawtry  by  daylight  proved  to  be  a  good-sized  village 
with  a  wide  chief  street  lined  by  ancient  shops  and 
dwellings.  At  each  end  of  the  broad  barren  of  this 
main  thoroughfare  was  a  pump,  and  near  the  upper 


146 


Among  English  Hedgerows 


one  a  battered  and  armless  market-cross  still  stands, 
though  the  market  that  once  used  to  enliven  Bawtry 
street  has  not  been  held  for  over  half  a  century. 

In  the  pleasant  farming  lands  round  about  I  found 
the  soil  very  different  from  that  in  the  southern  coun- 
try I  had  recently  left.     There,  the  plough  turned  up 


Bawtry  Market-cross 


the  earth  in  rough  humps  that  dried  into  a  tough  and 
rocky-looking  hardness.  Here  it  was  light  and 
mellow,   and    instead    of  four    horses    they  ploughed 


The  Home  of  the  Pilgrims  147 

with  two  and  dispensed  with  a  ploughboy.  More 
than  that,  the  ploughman  only  used  one  line  to  guide 
his  team.  This  was  a  rope  which  was  attached  to  the 
check-rein  of  the  nigh  horse.  When  the  ploughman 
wanted  his  team  to  gee,  he  gave  the  rope  a  jerk. 
When  he  wanted  it  to  haw,  he  gave  the  rope  a  steady 
pull.  I  wondered  if  William  Brewster  or  Governor 
Bradford  ever  followed  the  plough  after  that  fashion 
when  they  lived  in  the  region  three  hundred  years 
ago. 

Bawtry  itself  was  the  home  of  neither  of  these  old- 
time  dissenters.  Brewster  lived  at  Scrooby,  Bradford 
at  Austerfield,  small  villages  that  lie  in  opposite  direc- 
tions with  Bawtry,  half  way  between,  within  easy 
walking  distance. 

When  you  approach  Scrooby,  you  dip  into  meadow 
lowlands.  There,  along  the  diked  banks  of  the  little 
river  Ryton,  on  the  morning  of  my  visit  cattle  and 
long-haired  sheep  were  grazing  and  several  swans  were 
sailing  on  the  current  or  preening  their  feathers  at  the 
water's  edge.  I  saw  one  of  the  swans  in  flight,  and  it 
had  such  a  great  reach  of  strong  white  wings  it  made  a 
magnificent  sight.  But  the  birds  appear  ugly  and 
awkward  enough  on  shore,  dabbling  in  the  marshy 
hollows  after  food. 

From  the  distance,  Scrooby  village  with  its  red  roofs 
half  hidden  in  the  spring  greens  of  its  shrubbery  and 


148  Among  English  Hedgerows 

its  little  spire  shooting  up  in  the  midst  was  very  pretty. 
But  in  its  near  reality  it  is  a  shapeless,  forlorn  little 
place  whose  days  of  former  prosperity  are  a  long  way 
removed.  Before  the  time  of  railroads  the  village  was 
on  the  main  stage  route  north  from  London  and  it 
was  busy  and  prosperous.  Now  that  it  has  the  rail- 
road, everybody  flies  past  it,  and  its  own  people  drift 
away  to  larger  places. 

A  cluster  of  a  dozen  or  more  houses  makes  up  the 
village.  They  are  built  close  together  on  several  inter- 
twining lanes.  Nearly  all  the  houses  seem  very  old, 
and  most  show  signs  of  neglect,  and  some  are  crum- 
bling into  ruins.  The  village  has  two  or  three  inns, 
—  a  village  however  poor  and  decayed  has  to  have  its 
drinking-places,  —  and  it  has  an  ancient  gristmill  built 
over  the  little  river. 

At  the  church  gate  I  met  a  gray  old  gentleman  with 
a  key  in  his  hand,  and  he  showed  me  the  church  interior. 
Then  he  took  me  down  a  village  alley  and  directed  me 
to  follow  a  path  through  a  gate  to  the  site  of  the  old 
manor-house  where  Brewster  lived  long  ago. 

I  crossed  a  pasture  field  where  a  herd  of  cattle  were 
feeding  and  approached  a  group  of  farm-buildings.  I 
knocked  at  the  back  door  of  the  house,  and  it  was 
opened  by  a  bent  old  man.  He  showed  considerable 
interest  when  he  found  I  was  from  America,  and  got 
two  of  the  women  folks  to  bring  out  some  photographs 


The  Home  of  the  Pilgrims  151 

for  me  to  see.  After  that  he  took  me  into  the  parlor, 
and  had  me  write  my  name  in  a  thin  blank-book  he 
kept  for  a  visitors'  register.  Then  he  said  he  would 
take  me  outdoors  and  called  to  his  wife,  "  I  want  me 
hat."  But  his  wife  was  busy,  and  the  man  poked  aside 
a  tow-headed  baby  that  was  toddling  about  underfoot 
and  got  the  hat  himself. 

My  guide  took  me  down  a  garden  path  that  led 
from  the  house  to  some  long  brick  stables.  He 
said  that  when  Brewster  "  turned  good,"  he  and  his 
companions  held  meetings  in  one  of  the  apartments 
of  these  old  cowsheds.  He  even  knew  in  which  par- 
ticular section  the  Puritans  had  worshipped.  To  visit 
this  building  we  had  to  enter  a  mucky  barn-yard,  and 
so  disturbed  the  meditations  of  a  very  corpulent  and 
pug-nosed  pig  which  with  a  younger  relation  followed 
and  sniffed  us  with  suspicious  interest,  as  we  kept 
along  the  cobbles  at  the  borders  of  the  yard. 

The  interior  of  the  long  building  is  divided  into  as 
many  as  half  a  dozen  apartments  by  brick  partitions. 
The  one  used  by  Brewster  and  his  company  is  as  large 
as  a  moderate  sized  room.  In  itself  it  is  quite  bare 
and  uninteresting  —  simply  a  dim,  windowless,  straw- 
littered  stable.  Formerly  it  had  a  door  on  each  side, 
so  that  if  the  worshippers  were  interrupted  by  their 
persecutors  they  might  fly  by  the  door  that  seemed 
most  expedient,  according  to  the  position  of  the  un- 


152  Among  English  Hedgerows 

friendly  ones  outside.  At  least,  such  was  the  story 
told  by  my  guide. 

In  the  pasture  field  stands  a  crab  tree  so  old  that  it 
is  thought  Brewster  must  often  have  eaten  of  its  fruit. 
The  top  and  one  side  have  fallen  away,  and  there  is 
only  a  shell-like  and  gnarled  old  stub  left.  In  spite 
of  its  age  and  decay  it  has  life  still,  and  the  bushy 
sprouts  that  crowded  it  were  full  of  pink  buds  that 
soon  would  be  blossoms. 

The  old  man  of  the  manor  told  me  he  sold  the 
stocks  that  were  once  used  in  the  village  for  the  pun- 
ishment of  offenders  for  ^5.  They  were  not  in  reality 
worth  a  shilling,  he  said,  but  the  man  wanted  them  to 
send  to  America,  and  as  he  himself  had  no  use  for 
them  he  let  them  go.  He  had  no  doubt  he  could  sell 
the  old  crab  tree  to  go  to  America,  if  he  cared  to. 

At  Austerfield  still  stands  the  cottage  of  William 
Bradford,  in  the  cellar  of  which,  according  to  tradition, 
the  Pilgrims  at  times  had  religious  worship.  Auster- 
field is  a  mile  from  Bawtry  by  the  field  paths  in  the 
opposite  direction  from  Scrooby.  It  is  an  uncom- 
monly dismal  village.  Its  brick  houses  and  barns 
crowd  close  together  along  its  single  street  for  a  half- 
mile  or  more.  Their  walls  are  for  the  most  part  snug 
with  the  cobble  walks,  and  their  barrenness  is  not  re- 
lieved by  either  flowers  or  vines.  Worse  than  this, 
the  buildings  seem  to  present  their  backs  or  sides  to 


The  Home  of  the  Pilgrims  153 

the  street,  and  these  are  often  windowless  or  nearly  so. 
The  prospect  looking  along  these  grim  old  walls  of 


Austerfield  Church 

brick  and  plaster,  unshadowed  by  a  single  tree,  is  as 
depressing  as  a  vista  of  greasy  tenements  in  an  Ameri- 
can factory  village. 

In  the  centre  of  the  hamlet,  at  the  end  of  a  short 
lane,  next  a  barn-yard,  is  a  dilapidated  little  church. 
It  is  weather-worn  and  splintered  by  storm  and  frost, 
and  it  not  only  dates  back  to  the  days  of  the  Pil- 
grims, but  hundreds  of  vears  beyond.  One  need  only 
look  at  its  enormously  thick  walls  and  its  quaint  Nor- 


154  Among  English  Hedgerows 

man .  arches  with  their  rude  chiseUings,  to  feel  assured 
of  the  building's  great  age. 

But  though  an  air  of  decay  now  lingers  over  the 
church  and  the  village  houses,  all  the  region  was  pros- 
perous in  the  days  of  the  Pilgrims ;  and  the  lonely 
little  band  of  voyagers  to  our  bleak  New  England 
shores  must  have  felt  painfully  the  contrast  between 
their  new  home  and  the  pleasant  well-cultivated  fertil- 
ity of  the  home  they  left  behind. 


XI 

A    MARKET    DAY 

TUESDAYS  and  Saturdays  were  market  days 
for  all  the  people  about  Bawtry.  Everybody 
who  had  anything  to  sell,  or  who  wanted  to 
buy  anything,  went  on  those  days  to  Doncaster,  a  large 
town,  eight  miles  north.  One  Saturday  I  went,  too. 
Nearly  every  one  on  the  train  I  took  carried  a  basket, 
and  when  we  reached  the  town  I  had  simply  to  follow 
the  basket-laden  crowd,  and  that  brought  me  to  the 
market-place. 

I  never  was  in  more  of  a  hurly-burly.  The  centre 
of  the  scene  was  a  low,  wide-spreading  building  of 
dingy  gray  stone.  On  the  west  side  of  this  building 
was  a  broad  open  space  full  of  canopied  booths,  tables, 
and  covered  carts  arranged  in  little  streets.  It  was  like 
a  small  city  of  shops.  There  were  fish  booths,  meat 
booths,  sweetshops,  and  restaurants,  and  many  displays 
of  crockery,  dry-goods,  and  hardware.  You  could  even 
buy  a  gay-colored  chromo  in  a  gilt  frame.  Everywhere 
were  people  crowding  the  toy-like  streets,  buying  and 

»55 


156 


Among  English   Hedgerows 


Doncaster  Market-place 


bargaining  and  stowing  away  bundles  in  their  various- 
shaped  baskets. 

In  a  lane  south  of  the  building  were  vegetables,  fruits, 
and  greens  in  bags,  crates  and  heaps  piled  along  the 


A  Market  Day  157 

pavement  for  disposal  at  wholesale.  In  an  open  space 
at  the  end  of  this  lane  were  the  vans  and  wagons  of 
the  farm  folk,  mostly  empty  and  without  horses,  pushed 
to  one  side  out  of  the  way.  Here  a  gateway  in  an  iron 
fence  admitted  one  to  the  cattle  and  sheep  markets. 
The  sheep  pens  covered  an  acre  or  two,  and  as  much 
more  space  was  reserved  for  the  cattle.  Chipped  bark 
from  the  tannery  vats  was  strewn  underfoot,  which, 
mixed  with  the  natural  odors  of  the  place,  made  its 
aroma  anything  but  choice. 

Under  the  edge  of  a  great  shed  were  displays  of 
farm  tools  and  machinery,  and  in  neighboring  vans 
and  booths  you  could  buy  harnesses,  rope,  brooms, 
and  other  heavy  articles. 

Inside  the  market  building,  at  one  end,  was  a  large 
room  known  as  the  corn  exchange.  Here  were  many 
tables  strewn  with  samples  of  grain  and  fertilizers, 
and  a  crowd  of  brokers  and  buyers  busy  with  their 
bargaining. 

But  most  of  the  building  was  given  up  to  the 
retail  marketers.  The  part  occupied  by  them  was  a 
great,  open,  high-pillared  hall,  its  floor  full  of  benches 
with  alleys  between  for  the  public.  In  one  section 
were  fruits  and  vegetables  and  many  flowers,  both 
potted  and  in  bouquets ;  in  another  section  were  a 
score  or  two  of  farmers'  wives  standing  guard  over 
numerous  baskets  of  eggs,  butter,  cheese,  and  dressed 


158 


Among  English  Hedgerows 


fowls  with  their  ghastly  heads  still  on  their  bodies. 
In  another  part  of  the  hall  were  dozens  of  crates  and 
baskets  of  live  fowls  and  several  cages  of  timid  rab- 
bits, while  along  the  walls  were  the  booths  of  the 
butchers  —  "  shambles,"  they  called  them. 

When    I    returned    to    Bawtry  late    in    the    day,  I 


Scrubbing 


found  a  travelling  caravan  camped  at  the  "bottom" 
of  the  street  (the  English  always  say  "  top  and  bot- 


A  Market  Day  159 

torn "  instead  of  head  and  foot).  The  horses  were 
tethered  near  by,  and  steps  had  been  put  up  between 
the  shafts  to  the  front  doors  of  the  two  vans.  Above 
the  roof  of  the  larger  car  a  length  of  stovepipe  showed, 
from  which  a  wisp  of  smoke  was  fluttering.  From 
the  doorway  of  the  car  an  intelligent  and  pleasant- 
appearing  young  woman  was  looking  out.  At  a  little 
remove,  near  the  village  pump,  was  a  kettle  hung  over 
a  fire,  and  some  lines  of  newly  washed  garments  were 
drying  close  by. 

But  the  chief  feature  of  the  scene  was  a  row  of 
half  a  dozen  little  donkeys  all  saddled  and  ready  for 
riders.  I  never  saw  anything  so  sober  and  sleepy. 
On  their  bridles  were  their  names,  and  under  each 
name  was  printed  a  motto  something  like  this,  "  Oh, 
what  fun,"  or  "  I  am  so  good."  The  donkeys  were 
all  the  time  surrounded  by  a  group  of  village  children, 
rubbing  and  poking  them  and  reading  their  mottoes. 
A  good  many  of  these  children  apparently  had  no 
money  and  were  simply  bent  on  getting  all  the  enjoy- 
ment that  was  to  be  had  free.  Yet  every  now  and 
then  two  or  three  boys  would  pay  their  pennies  and 
each  mount  a  donkey  and  start  down  the  street. 
Each  boy  had  a  switch,  and  one  of  the  gypsy  men 
ran  after  for  a  ways  and  belabored  the  donkeys  from 
behind  to  get  them  well  awake  and  attentive  to  busi- 
ness.    As  for  the  boys,  they  lashed  their  animals  the 


i6o  Among  English  Hedgerows 

journey  through,  and  when  they  returned  the  creatures 
were  apt  to  get  some  extra  raps  and  kicks  before  they 
were  adjusted  to  their  places  and  fell  asleep  again. 

A  little  to  one  side  of  the  donkey  row  was  a  curious 
sort  of  a  vehicle,  high  above  whose  four  wheels  was 
hoisted  a  kind  of  a  boat.  Against  the  boat  a  ladder 
leaned  to  ascend  and  descend  by.  On  the  ground  by 
the  ladder  was  a  young  fellow  shaking  a  handful  of 
coins  between  the  palms  of  his  hands  and  calling  out 
to  the  children  to  come  on,  only  a  ha'penny  to  ride  to 
the  top  of  the  street  and  back.  The  children  who  paid 
their  ha'pennies  were  privileged  to  climb  the  ladder 
and  get  into  the  boat.  There  they  amused  themselves 
while  they  waited  by  jostling  each  other  and  spitting 
down  on  those  outside  or  throwing  pebbles  at  them. 

When  the  boat  had  a  dozen  or  fifteen  in  it,  the 
jockey  fellow  pulled  down  the  ladder,  mounted  the 
driver's  seat,  and  started  his  horse  up  the  village. 
The  boat  began  at  once  to  sway  backward  and  for- 
ward, and  the  children  felt  as  if  they  were  pitching 
along  on  a  sea  voyage.  They  liked  it  so  well  they 
sang  all  the  way  to  the  further  end  of  the  street  and 
back  at  the  top  of  their  voices. 

In  a  bit  of  ragged  grass-plot  next  the  caravan's 
camping  place  was  a  muddy  puddle,  and  some  of  the 
boys  who  had  no  money  or  had  spent  it  gathered  there. 
One  little  fat  boy  with  a  broad  white  collar  on  stood 


A  Market  Day 


i6i 


in  the  puddle  and  kicked  the  water  on  his  mates  when 
they  came  near.  He  got  more  on  himself  than  he  did 
on  them,  and  I  expected  to  see  him  go  flat  in  some  of 
his  efforts.     But  luck  was  with  him  and  he  persevered 


Playing  Hopscotch  in  the  Street 

until  a  larger  boy,  who  had  been  watching  his  oppor- 
tunity, grabbed  him,  dragged  him  out,  tumbled  him  in 
the  dirt,  and  gave  him  a  licking. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  caravan,  in  the  street,  a 
crowd  of  boys  were  busy  kicking  a  small  ball  about 


1 62  Among  English  Hedgerows 

the  open.  There  seemed  to  be  no  game  —  they  each 
kicked  the  ball  whenever  they  had  a  chance  and  did 
not  at  all  mind  what  direction  it  took.  This  aimless 
game  of  ball-kicking  I  saw  in  many  parts  of  England, 
and  sometimes  it  was  played  by  boys  who  were  almost 
men  grown. 


XII 

A    NIGHT    AT    A    LINCOLNSHIRE    INN 

FROM  Bawtry  I  went  to  Lincoln.  It  happened 
to  be  a  great  fair  week  in  the  city.  There  was 
the  horse  fair  and  the  cattle  fair  and  the  pleasure 
fair,  and  the  place  was  full  of  noise  and  turmoil.  The 
horses  and  the  cattle  I  neglected  in  order  to  give  all 
my  energies  to  the  pleasure  fair,  which  I  found  in  an 
enclosed  square  near  the  city  centre.  The  near  streets 
were  jammed  with  just  such  a  throng  and  tumult  as 
we  see  in  our  American  towns  on  a  circus  day.  No 
admission  was  charged  at  the  gates.  You  walked  right 
in.  First  you  passed  rows  of  booths  devoted  to  the 
sale  of  sweets,  eatables,  toys,  and  fancy  articles,  with 
now  and  then  a  little  photograph  gallery  sandwiched 
in  among  the  rest.  Beyond  were  several  squares 
fenced  about  by  netting,  where  for  a  small  sum  you 
were  privileged  to  throw  three  wooden  balls  at  a  row 
of  cocoanuts.  The  nuts  had  faces  roughly  marked  on 
them  and  were  set  on  stakes  at  the  farther  sides  of  the 
enclosures.  If  you  dislodged  a  cocoanut,  it  was  your 
property. 

163 


164  Among  English   Hedgerows 

But  the  great  feature  of  the  fair  was  the  round- 
abouts or  merry-go-rounds.  About  a  dozen  of  them 
were  in  operation  that  day  in  Lincoln  pleasure  fair, 
and  they  were  all  as  gaudy  with  red  and  gold  as  it  was 
possible  to  make  them.  They  ran  by  steam  power, 
and  the  engine  inside  each  roundabout  had  a  steam 
organ  attached,  and  every  organ  was  piping  away  at  a 
furious  rate  on  a  tune  that  was  distressingly  unlike 
the  musical  selections  of  any  of  its  rivals.  After  you 
had  exhausted  the  pleasures  of  being  whirled  on  the 
little  wooden  horses  of  the  roundabouts,  you  could 
try  the  steam  swings  that  swayed  you  back  and  forth 
through  the  air  at  such  a  tremendous  rate  it  seemed  a 
wonder  you  did  not  get  shot  out ;  and  when  that 
palled  there  were  still  plenty  of  other  sports  for  your 
delectation. 

Taken  all  together  it  was  the  most  giddy,  flashy, 
exciting  sort  of  place  imaginable.  Yet  it  had  its  quieter 
side,  and  if  there  were  those  whose  nerves  were  not 
equal  to  the  more  noisy  and  violent  amusements,  they 
could  seek  some  of  the  milder  pleasures ;  such,  for  in- 
stance, as  the  peepshows. 

The  peepshow  that  I  visited  was  not  especially  edify- 
ing. I  paid  a  penny  at  the  door  of  the  tent  and  went 
inside.  At  once  the  noises  without  grew  dim,  and  in 
the  hush  and  the  twilight  I  had  the  feeling  as  if  I  had 
stepped   into   some   place   of  religious  worship.     But 


A  Night  at  a  Lincolnshire   Inn  165 

this  impression  was  quickly  dispelled  when  I  began  to 
make  a  tour  of  the  twenty-five  bull's-eye  glasses  into 
which  I  was  free  to  gaze.  They  revealed  the  worst 
collection  of  pictures  I  have  ever  looked  at  all  in  one 
lump.  Most  of  them  were  badly  done  as  well  as 
morally  doubtful,  and  some  were  horribly  bloody. 
The  final  one  was  a  donkey  looking  over  a  fence.  It 
was  labelled  "  When  shall  we  meet  again  ?  " 

As  I  was  leaving  the  fair  I  noticed  just  down  the 
street  a  crowd  gathering  about  a  Punch-and-Judy  show 
and  I  became  one  of  the  fast-increasing  audience.  The 
nucleus  of  the  crowd  was  a  light,  curtain-covered  box 
about  six  feet  square  and  eight  high.  On  a  shelf  in 
the  open  upper  front  sat  a  little  dog  with  gay  ribbons 
around  his  neck.  A  young  fellow  close  by  was  playing 
on  some  mouthpipes,  and  from  inside  the  little  play- 
house came  the  sound  of  a  drum  beating,  and  an  occa- 
sional squeaking  of  a  Punch-and-Judy  voice. 

By  and  by  the  music  stopped  and  Mr.  Punch  bobbed 
up  and  began  to  talk.  He  made  Dog  Toby  hold  up 
one  paw,  then  the  other,  then  both  paws,  and  whacked 
a  stick  at  him.  Dog  Toby  seemed  astonished,  but 
minded  well  till  presently  he  was  tumbled  down  out 
of  sight. 

I  could  not  tell  very  well  what  was  said  in  the 
play,  but  it  was  full  of  quarrelling  and  head-hitting. 
Mrs.  Punch  comes  in  and  there  is  a  row.     Then  she 


1 66  Among  English   Hedgerows 

makes  Mr.  Punch  mind  the  baby.  The  baby  cries 
and  Mr.  Punch  spanks  it  and  bangs  it  and  at  last 
throws  it  out  of  the  window. 

Mrs.  Punch  comes  in  and  asks  for  the  baby.  Punch 
says  he  threw  it  out  of  the  window.  Then  there  is 
weeping  and  wailing  and  quarrelling,  and  Judy  beats 
Punch  and  Punch  beats  Judy. 

In  the  end  Punch  kills  Judy  and  then  a  policeman 
comes  and  there  is  another  round  of  disputing  and 
knocking.  Lastly  a  ghost  appears  and  keeps  popping 
up  before  Mr.  Punch  from  all  quarters.  The  ghost  is 
a  doll  with  a  very  white  face  and  very  pink  cheeks. 
Mr.  Punch  can't  catch  or  hit  this  ghost,  and  it  worries 
him.  The  continual  reappearance  of  the  ghost  makes 
his  mind  dwell  on  his  crime  and  he  gets  more  and  more 
conscience-stricken  about  killing  his  wife. 

It  struck  me  that  if  ever  a  villain  deserved  punish- 
ment for  his  crimes,  Punch  did.  But  he  escaped  jus- 
tice and  the  gallows,  and  as  played  at  the  Lincoln  fair 
he  ended  his  exertions  by  sitting  up  on  the  front  shelf 
of  the  little  street  theatre  and  singing  "After  the 
Ball." 

The  story  was  rough  and  coarse,  the  figures  gro- 
tesque, the  manner  of  acting  exaggerated  in  the  ex- 
treme, and  yet  there  was  underneath  a  primeval 
directness  and  simplicity  that  gave  it  an  absorbing 
interest.      Grown   people  and  children   both,  though 


A  Night  at  a  Lincolnshire  Inn  167 

they  had  seen  the  play  many  times,  watched  it  to  the 
end  with  unflagging  attention. 

I  now  left  the  pleasure  fair  behind  and  climbed  to 
the  ancient  castle  and  cathedral  that  crown  the  hill 
in  the  centre  of  the  city.  Later  I  wandered  at  ran- 
dom through  the  crooked  streets  that  zigzag  up  and 
down  the  hillside ;  and  all  the  time  I  could  hear,  far 
off,  the  faint  and  confused  murmur  of  the  music  and 
noises  of  the  fair. 

This  undertone  of  distant  merriment  was  a  sound 
entirely  different  from  anything  I  had  ever  known  in 
America,  and  its  unmistakable  old-world  flavor  added 
distinctly  to  the  pleasure  of  my  ramble  through  the 
antiquated  Lincoln  byways.  It  is  not  easy  to  suggest 
in  words  the  charm  of  the  grimy  mediaeval  streets  to 
be  found  in  the  older  parts  of  every  English  city. 
You  must  see  them  to  feel  their  fascination. 

The  ancient  sections  of  the  towns  are  nearly  always 
shapeless  tangles  of  uncertain  lanes  and  narrow  streets, 
and  the  surprises  of  this  irregularity  are  a  continual 
delight.  One  rejoices,  too,  in  the  constant  discovery 
of  buildings  that  have  all  the  rudeness  and  pictu- 
resqueness  of  days  hundreds  of  years  gone  by.  Their 
weather-worn  and  time-stained  walls  and  the  mossy 
tiles  and  sagging  lines  of  their  roofs  are  very  beauti- 
ful. One  never  tires  of  the  strange  old  shops  and 
dwellings,    especially   those    with    overhanging   upper 


i68 


Among  English  Hedgerows 


stories.      These    warped,    venerable   buildings   are   so 
charming   to   look   at   it   seems   a   pity   they   are    not 


A  Group  of  Old  Town  Houses 

oftener    in    surroundings    that    would     make     them 
pleasant  to  live  in. 

After  all,  the  attraction  that  the  English  towns 
have  for  the  sight-seer  is  not  wholly  dependent 
either  on  age  or  charm  of  architecture.  In  part,  at 
least,  it  is  due  to  the  gentle  atmosphere  that  always 
bathes   them.       Even   on   such   a   day   as   the   one   I 


A  Night  at  a  Lincolnshire  Inn  169 

spent  in  Lincoln,  which  was  the  brightest  and  sun- 
niest we  had  had  for  some  time,  the  town  atmosphere 
was  infused  with  a  haze  that  gave  every  prospect 
tenderness  and  sentiment.  This  was  largely  owing  to 
the  fact  that  in  England  they  burn  soft  coal,  and  on 
quiet  days  the  air  of  even  the  smallest  villages  will 
get  its  tinge  of  smoky  vapor.  Its  earthy  and  not 
unpleasant  odor  is  particularly  apparent  when  fires  are 
briskened  for  cooking  and  heat  in  the  chilly  mornings 
and  evenings. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  afternoon  I  left  Lincoln 
city,  and  walked  easterly  along  a  canal  out  into  the 
fen  country.  Most  of  Lincolnshire  is  fenland,  and  is 
only  kept  from  the  overflow  of  the  high  tides  by  an 
elaborate  system  of  diking.  The  land  lies  very  low, 
and  stretches  away  monotonously  toward  the  ocean  as 
far  as  the  eye  can  reach,  broken  at  long  intervals  by 
slight  ledges  and  tree  clumps.  Many  teams  were  at 
work  ploughing  in  the  fens,  and  many  little  fires 
smoked  lazily  where  heaps  of  stubble  were  burning. 
Behind  me,  the  one  dominant  feature  of  the  landscape, 
lay  Lincoln  city,  terracing  with  its  roofs  the  hill  where 
loomed,  high  over  all,  the  lofty  towers  and  fretted 
gables  of  its  beautiful  cathedral. 

A  two-mile  walk  brought  me  to  the  quiet,  rural 
village  of  Washingboro,  where  I  found  lodging  at  a 
queer  little  inn  called,  "  The  Hunter's  Leap."     The 


I  JO  Among  English  Hedgerows 

most  peculiar  feature  of  the  inn  was  that  it  had  no 
door  on  the  street,  though  it  occupied  a  street  cor- 
ner ;  and  I  almost  despaired  of  getting  into  it  at  first. 
As  a  last  resort,  after  looking  about  and  studying  the 
matter,  I  went  around  to  the  back  into  an  alley-like, 
flagged  yard,  and  ventured  to  rap  at  a  rear  door. 
That  brought  a  maid,  and  the  maid  brought  her 
mistress ;  and  though,  like  most  inns,  "  The  Hunter's 
Leap  "  was  not  in  the  habit  of  taking  lodgers,  it  was 
at  length  agreed  to  furnish  me  with  a  night's  shelter. 

I  stood  in  the  doorway  while  we  parleyed,  and  we 
had  barely  finished  when  I  was  surprised  by  a  voice 
from  the  room  within  saying,  "  Come  in,  Master." 

I  obeyed  the  invitation,  and  found  an  old  gentle- 
man, with  his  mug  of  beer  before  him,  sitting  on  a 
great  straight-backed  settle  that  reached  out  from  the 
borders  of  the  fireplace  nearly  across  the  room.  It 
was  a  dusky  little  apartment,  doing  service  both  as 
kitchen  and  inn  taproom,  and  with  its  big  settle,  its 
floor  laid  with  square  red  tiles,  and  its  low  ceiling 
crossed  by  a  heavy  beam,  it  had  a  flavor  of  unusual 
quaintness. 

The  old  gentleman  had  overheard  me  say  that  I 
was  from  America,  and  he  gave  me  a  hearty  welcome, 
because  he  had  two  sisters  over  there  in  the  States 
in  Ann  Arbor  and  a  nephew  in  Chicago.  When  he 
had  explained  all   this   at  some  length,   he   began   at 


A  Night  at  a   Lincolnshire   Inn  171 

the  beginning  and  told  it  all  through  again.  He  was 
bound  that  I  should  get  the  facts  clear  in  my  mind, 
for  every  time  in  my  stay  at  Washingboro  that  I  got 
within  talking  range  of  this  old  gentleman  he  com- 
pelled me  to  stop  while  he  said,  as  if  it  were  fresh 
and  important  information,  "  I  'ave  two  sisters  in 
Hann  Harbor,"  etc. 

The  only  time  he  got  off  the  track  was  once 
when  he  stopped  between  his  repetitions  to  inquire 
if  American  people  were  like  English  people,  and  he 
was  particularly  anxious  to  know  if  American  girls 
were  good  looking.  One  other  question  was  as  to 
whether  our  summer  came  at  the  same  season  of  the 
year  it  did  in  England. 

To  change  the  subject,  I  went  for  a  walk.  When 
I  returned,  about  eight  o'clock,  I  found  the  inn  tap- 
room quite  populous.  Mugs  and  glasses  in  process 
of  being  emptied  crowded  the  table,  tongues  were 
wagging,  and  the  air  was  heavy  with  tobacco  smoke. 
I  could  not  run  away,  and  I  took  a  seat  near  the  door. 
The  company  at  once  made  room  for  me  in  their  midst, 
and  urged  me  to  come  up  in  the  centre  of  things  by 
the  fire,  but  I  persisted  in  declining  the  honor. 

One  well-to-do  farmer,  after  he  had  taken  his  drop, 
wanted  me  to  go  with  him  to  his  home  near  by  and  see 
some  fat  sheep  that  he  was  going  to  drive  to  Lincoln 
market  on  the  morrow. 


172 


Among  English   Hedgerows 


He  took  me  to  a  big  house  up  the  road,  and  we 
went  into  the  stone-paved  kitchen  where  some  of  the 
family  were  eating  supper  by  the  light  of  the  open  fire. 
The  room  was  festooned  with  many  hams  and  sides  of 
bacon.  Some  of  the  meat  was  two  years  old,  the 
farmer  said.  He  lit  a  candle  and  put  it  in  a  tin  lan- 
tern with  glass  sides,  and  led  the  way  into  a  big  barn- 


A  Cottage  Breakfast 


A  Night  at  a  Lincolnshire  Inn  173 

/ard  fenced  all  about,  as  if  against  assault,  by  a  high 
stone  wall.  In  this  enclosure  were  straw  ricks  and 
numbers  of  stone  sheds  and  barns.  We  went  into 
the  barn  where  the  sheep  were  penned.  They  had 
been  clipped  the  day  before,  and  their  long-haired 
fleeces  lay  in  a  pile  on  the  barn  floor,  each  wound  in 
a  bundle,  inner  side  out.  The  barn  space  above  was 
open  to  the  rafters.  To  enable  me  to  see  better  into 
the  upper  gloom,  the  farmer  took  the  candle  from  his 
lantern  and  held  it  over  his  head.  We  visited  the  shed 
where  he  kept  his  horses ;  the  cow  shed  ;  the  chicken 
shed,  where  the  fowls  were  roosting  on  poles  well  up 
under  the  roof;  and  the  piggery,  where  two  fat  hogs  rose 
up  ghost-like  on  their  fore  legs  with  a  funny  upheaval 
of  the  straw  with  which  they  had  covered  themselves. 

Finally  the  farmer  said  we  would  see  the  calf  pen. 
This  was  a  joke ;  for  when  I  looked  in,  there  was 
naught  but  a  big  black  and  white  rabbit  blinking  at  us 
from  the  floor.  The  man  was  quite  proud  of  his  farm 
and  of  the  fact  that  a  person  from  America  had  come 
to  see  it.  When  I  returned  to  the  inn  he  went  with 
me  to  get  a  final  drink,  and  sitting  in  the  taproom 
among  his  cronies,  he  talked  at  some  length  about  this 
"American  —  a  native,"  who  had  been  to  see  his  fat 
sheep.  He  told  me  I  talked  English  pretty  well  for 
an  American,  and  seemed  to  have  the  idea  that  across 
the  water  we  had  a  different  language. 


174  Among  English  Hedgerows 

I  spent  the  night  in  the  queerest  sort  of  room  right 
under  the  roof.  The  ceiling  slanted  upward  from  the 
sides  and  bulged  down  into  the  room  in  the  middle. 
I  had  to  be  careful  to  keep  my  knees  bent,  for  there 
was  nowhere  I  could  stand  straight  without  bumping 
my  head.  The  floor  was  partly  covered  with  a  carpet. 
The  sides  of  the  room  were  papered,  but  the  paper 
in  places  was  peeling  off  and  was  badly  stained  with 
leakage. 

My  light  was  a  candle  in  a  tin  candlestick.  There 
were  two  stands  and  a  bureau  in  the  room,  and  the 
bureau  was  ornamented  with  a  cheap  clock  that  regis- 
tered two  o'clock  when  it  was  nine.  About  midnight 
the  alarm  went  off  with  a  startling  clatter. 

Added  to  all  other  experiences  I  made  the  acquaint- 
ance of  a  large  family  of  fleas.  Still,  that  was  nothing 
remarkable,  for  fleas  are  regular  boarders  at  nearly  all 
the  English  hotels  and  lodging-houses,  though  not 
usually  in  such  numbers  as  I  found  here.  The  crea- 
tures are  the  more  exasperating  because  they  are  so 
small  and  have  such  a  lively  hop  that  you  can  rarely 
catch  one  to  take  vengeance  on  it. 


XIII 


A    YORKSHIRE    VILLAGB 


THE  next  morning  I  took  the  train  for  Shef- 
field. We  had  several  heavy  showers  on  the 
way,  but  it  cleared  afterward,  though  great 
windy  clouds  continued  to  blow  about  the  sky  all  day. 
The  last  part  of  the  journey  was  through  a  region 
of  many  collieries.  Their  tall  chimneys,  mountainous 
heaps  of  slag,  long  lines  of  little  freight  cars  loaded 
with  coal,  and  many  black  crowded  little  villages  were 
continually  coming  into  view.  Everywhere  were 
smoke  and  vapors.  But  the  place  of  all  others  for 
grime  and  mirk  is  Sheffield  city.  Its  atmosphere  is 
kept  so  loaded  with  the  soot  forever  belching  forth 
from  its  great  iron  works  and  factories  that  the  place 
is  fairlv  gloomy  even  at  midday.  Smoke  overhangs  it 
and  smoke  drifts  through  its  streets  to  such  an  extent 
as  to  give  the  town  a  look  weird  and  uncanny.  In 
this  daytime  twilight  there  seemed  something  porten- 
tous of  tempest  or  calamity,  and  it  was  a  relief  to  get 
away. 

175 


176  Among  English  Hedgerows 

I  went  to  Ecclesfield,  an  obscure  little  place,  five 
miles  distant,  that  attracted  me  solely  because  it  was 
the  birthplace  and  girlhood  home  of  Juliana  Horatia 
Ewing,  than  whom  there  has  been  no  more  charming 
writer  of  tales  for  children  in  our  language. 

For  a  village  of  two  thousand  inhabitants,  I  found 
Ecclesfield  uncommonly  well  supplied  with  publics. 
There  were  the  "  Traveller's  Rest,"  the  "  Black  Bull," 
the  "  George  and  Dragon,"  the  "  Griffin,"  the  "  White 
Bear,"  the  "Greyhound,"  the  "Tankard"  inn,  etc., 
—  eleven  in  all.  The  place  had  no  hotel,  but  among 
so  many  inns  I  thought  I  could  have  no  trouble  in 
finding  a  stopping-place;  yet  I  tried  them  one  after 
the  other  unsuccessfully.  That  the  "Black  Bull"  and 
the  "Griffin"  should  refuse  me  was  no  surprise;  but 
when  the  "  Traveller's  Rest "  went  back  on  its  name, 
I  began  to  be  decidedly  disconsolate. 

Finally  I  took  the  suggestion  of  a  maid  at  the 
"  George  and  Dragon,"  and  went  to  see  a  Mrs. 
Stringer  whose  home  was  on  a  near  side  street. 
Mrs.  Stringer  was  short  and  fat,  wore  spectacles,  and 
as  she  happened  to  be  dressed  up  when  I  called,  she 
had  in  her  ears  a  pair  of  great  black  earrings.  She 
said  she  had  no  spare  room,  but  she  had  a  chamber 
with  two  beds  in  it  that  were  occupied  by  her  son 
and  a  boarder.  She  could  have  them  sleep  in  one 
bed  and  I   could  have  the  other  if  I   was  willing  to 


A  Yorkshire  Village 


177 


Ecclesfield 


accept  such  an  arrangement.  Evening  was  at  hand, 
and  by  then  I  was  thankful  to  get  in  anywhere,  and 
so  the  thing  was  settled. 

I  did  not  sleep  overwell  that  night,  for  my  room- 
mates snored  and  puffed  in  the  most  wretched  manner. 
Added  to  this  I  was  startled  in  the  first  gray  of  the 
next  morning  by  a  great  rapping  on  the  walls  of  some 
room  neighboring ;  and  then  one  of  the  fellows  in  the 
other  bed  said,  "  Walt,  get  up  !  " 


lyS  Among  English  Hedgerows 

Walt  was  Mrs.  Stringer's  son.  He  was  helping  do 
a  job  of  masonry  some  distance  away  and  had  to  be 
up  at  five  o'clock.  His  mother  always  waked  him  by 
rapping  on  the  walls  of  her  room  just  across  a  little 
hallway.  In  a  few  minutes  Walt  was  stamping  down 
the  stairs  to  the  kitchen,  where  he  would  heat  a  mug 
of  tea  for  himself  over  the  gas  burner,  and  then  hurry 
off  to  begin  his  day's  labor  at  six  o'clock. 

The  other  young  man  worked  in  a  colliery  a  mile 
away.  The  colliery  had  two  gangs  of  laborers  and  he 
belonged  to  the  second  one.  His  work  began  at  two 
in  the  afternoon,  and  he  was  at  it  steadily  with  a  single 
short  pause  for  lunch  till  half-past  nine  in  the  evening, 
when  he  came  home  and  had  supper.  Ten  o'clock  in 
the  morning  was  his  getting-up  time.  The  first  thing 
he  did  when  he  came  downstairs  was  to  sit  by  the  fire 
and  have  a  smoke.  Then  he  washed  up,  put  on  his 
vest  and  necktie  and  brushed  his  hair.  The  colliery 
was  running  half-time  only,  and  his  wages  for  three 
days  a  week  was  probably  less  than  ten  shillings.  The 
coal  vein  he  worked  in  was  not  thick  enough  to  allow 
the  men  to  stand  upright  while  they  dug.  It  was  a 
surface  pit  running  back  into  a  hillside,  and  they  walked 
into  it  stooping  and  got  down  on  their  knees  to  swing 
their  pickaxes.  However,  Mrs.  Stringer's  boarder  said 
he  thought  it  was  easier  to  dig  that  way  than  standing. 

My  first  day  at  Ecclesfield  was  one  of  fog,  wander- 


A  Yorkshire  Village  179 

ing  showers,  and  stray  gleams  of  sunlight  with  a  few 
thunderclaps  and  a  sprinkling  of  sleet  added  for  va- 
riety. The  weather  kept  me  indoors  till  afternoon, 
when  I  went  to  a  wedding  at  the  church.  I  entered 
just  as  the  ceremony  was  beginning.  It  took  place  in 
the  chancel  where  a  lonely  knot  of  friends  was  gath- 
ered about  the  pair  being  married,  and  where  a  clergy- 
man in  his  robes  with  dolorous  tones,  was  going 
through  the  long  service.  There  were  kneelings  and 
risings  and  responses  and  a  marching  far  up  to  the 
altar  in  the  dim  recesses  of  the  chancel  for  the  final 
vows  and  admonitions.  In  the  main  part  of  the 
church  were  a  few  children  and  about  a  dozen  women 
looking  on  from  afar  and  whispering  comments  to 
each  other.  Outside,  along  the  path  through  the 
churchyard,  were  many  more  loiterers,  anxious  to  see 
the  couple  on  their  way   to  the  coach,  that  awaited 

their  coming  at  the  gate. 

The  ceremony  in  time  was  ended,  and  the  wedding 
party  marched  down  the  middle  aisle.  At  the  head 
of  the  procession  were  the  clergyman  and  his  assistant, 
and  behind  them  walked  the  callow  young  people  who 
had  just  been  united,  while  a  straggling  of  friends  and 
sightseers  brought  up  the  rear.  The  red-faced  young 
groom  as  he  stumped  along  looked  awkwardly  around 
and  waved  his  hand  to  his  cronies  and  smiled  as  if  he 
thought  it  had  all  been  a  good  joke. 


i8o  Among  English   Hedgerows 

A  little  after  the  wedding  a  funeral  from  next  door 
to  my  lodging-place  went  up  the  lane.  Every  one  was 
on  foot, —  mourners,  bearers,  and  the  curious  crowd 
of  dirty  children,  and  the  women  with  shawl-covered 
heads,  all  tramping  along  unconcernedly  through  the 
mud  and  rain. 

Toward  dusk  there  were  signs  of  clearing,  and  I 
went  for  a  walk  far  up  a  great  hillslope  at  the  back  of 
the  village.  I  did  not  return  till  the  darkness  was 
gathering,  and  when  I  reached  Ecclesfield  the  gas- 
lights were  flaring  at  long  intervals  on  its  dingy  streets 
and  byways.  When  I  turned  into  the  side  lane  and 
approached  my  lodging-place,  I  was  startled  to  find  a 
crowd  gathered  there,  while  from  the  next-door  neigh- 
bor's backyard  came  the  sound  of  rough,  high-voiced 
talking.  The  lane  was  full  of  dark  figures  hanging 
about  the  yard  gate  or  looking  from  the  near  door- 
ways and  corners.  I  pushed  on  till  I  reached  Mrs. 
Stringer's  kitchen.  The  room  was  deserted,  but  I 
went  in  and  waited.  After  a  time  the  disturbance 
outside  grew  quieter,  and  my  landlady  returned.  She 
said  a  man  had  died  next  door  the  day  before,  and  that 
the  trouble  at  present  which  caused  all  the  noise  and 
drew  the  crowd  was  due  to  a  relation  of  the  deceased 
v.'lio  li.id  been  appointed  trustee  of  the  property.  He 
had  been  drinking,  and  had  called  to  tell  the  women 
of  the  family  that  he   was  their  master  now.       Mrs. 


A  Yorkshire  Village  i8i 

Stringer  said  a  man  who  went  crazy  in  his  drink  ought 
not  to  be  allowed  any  drink,  and  it  was  a  shame  to  be 
kicking  up  a  row  in  the  house  when  there  was  a  dead 
body  in  it,  and  he  a  relation,  too. 

This  occurrence  led  to  her  telling  me  of  a  man 
she  knew  of  long  ago  who  was  a  terrible  drinker,  and 
one  day  when  he  was  dead  drunk  some  of  the  men 
took  him  down  in  a  coal  pit.  When  he  came  to, 
he  was  in  the  dense  blackness  of  the  under-world  with 
a  few  dim  lights  twinkling  here  and  there  in  the 
caverns.  The  men  who  brought  him  thither  told 
him  he  was  dead  and  buried  and  in  hell.  A  look 
around  convinced  him  that  they  spoke  the  truth,  and 
such  was  the  impression  on  him  that  he  never  drank 
afterward. 

When  I  came  down  to  wash  at  the  stone  sink  in 
the  kitchen  the  second  morning  of  my  stay  at  Mrs. 
Stringer's,  it  was  seven  o'clock.  Everything  was  quiet 
and  gassy  and  cold,  but  when  I  returned  from  a  short 
walk  the  street  door  was  open  a  crack  and  there  was  a 
blaze  on  the  kitchen  hearth  and  Mrs.  Stringer  was 
hastening  the  boiling  of  a  pot  by  blowing  the  fire 
with  the  bellows.  Two  small  grandchildren,  who  had 
come  on  a  visit  and  had  occupied  the  bed  with  their 
"  Granny "  that  night,  were  sitting  together  in  one 
chair  and  watching  her  intently. 

This  was   Mrs.   Stringer's  washing   day.       So  was 


l82 


Among  English   Hedgerows 


every  day  ;  for  it  was  by  taking  in  washing  that  she 
in  part  made  her  Hving.  She  did  her  scrubbing  at 
the  stone  sink  under  the  small  south  window,  and 
the    atmosphere   had    a    soapy   odor   from    morn    till 


Afternoon  in  the  Kitchen 

night.  But,  besides  washing,  she  did  coarse  sewing, 
and,  on  the  shelves  in  the  next  room,  she  had  a  few 
dress  goods  that  she  sold  on  commission  for  a  Shef- 
field shopkeeper. 

Mrs.  Stringer  had  been  a  widow  for  eleven  years. 


A  Yorkshire  Village  183 

Her  husband  had  earned  good  wages,  but  he  was  very- 
free  with  his  money  and  a  hard  drinker.  Sometimes, 
with  his  drinking  and  treating,  he  would  spend  a 
whole  sovereign  in  a  single  evening.  One  night 
when  he  had  been  up  the  long  slope  behind  the 
town  to  the  neighboring  village  of  Grenoside  he 
returned  late  and  unsteady  with  drink.  In  coming 
down  the  hill  in  the  gloom  he  fell  into  a  quarry.  He 
had  strength  enough  to  crawl  out  to  the  roadside  and 
there  was  found  about  midnight.  His  wife  had  been 
sitting  up  waiting  for  him  and  expecting  him  ever 
since  eight  o'clock.  They  brought  him  in  without 
any  forewarning,  and  he  died  within  an  hour.  Mrs. 
Stringer  had  never  been  right  in  her  nerves  since,  she 
said. 

This  second  day  in  Ecclesfield  was  bright  and  sunlit, 
and  I  spent  nearly  all  of  it  out  of  doors  wandering  about 
the  village  and  the  country  surrounding,  trying  to  estab- 
lish some  relation  between  it  all  and  my  favorite  juvenile 
author,  Mrs.  Ewing.     I  did  not  succeed  very  well. 

The  village  is  built  on  the  lower  slope  of  an  immense 
hill  much  furrowed  by  ravines.  It  is  very  crooked, 
its  stone  houses  are  mostly  weather-beaten,  blackened, 
and  crumbling,  its  streets  slimy  with  mud,  the  air  dense 
with  haze  and  ill-smelling  smoke,  and  the  people  whom 
I  saw  were  shabby  in  dress  and  heavy  and  stupid  ir 
manner.    It  seemed  an  environment  entirely  out  of  har 


184  Among  English  Hedgerows 

mony  with  the  deHcacy  and  sweetness  of  Mrs.  Ewing's 
writings,  and  I  wondered  that  she  could  find  inspiration 
for  such  beautiful  work  in  a  village  so  squalid. 

Yet  the  region  in  itself  is  attractive.  The  great  green 
hills  roll  and  tumble  all  about,  and  all  the  slopes  are 
carefully  cultivated.  But  as  soon  as  the  farm-lands 
reach  the  borders  of  the  village  there  is  naught  but 
huddled,  grimy  buildings  gathered  in  a  dirty  heap  in 
the  hillside  hollows. 

The  one  oasis  of  the  village  is  the  vicarage.  It  stands 
just  behind  the  dark  old  parish  church,  a  plain  stone 
dwelling  with  tidy  grounds  and  pleasant  fields  about 
and  an  overlook  across  a  long  reach  of  valley.  The 
vicarage  was  Mrs.  Ewing's  birthplace,  and  at  the  time 
of  my  visit  her  father,  "  Dr.  Gatty  "  still  made  it  his 
home.  He  had  been  the  Ecclesfield  vicar  for  sixty 
years,  and  Mrs.  Stringer  told  me  he  was  "  a  very  good 
preacher — he's  always  had  such  a  voice." 

Of  Dr.  Gatty's  famous  daughter  my  landlady  said, 
"'Julie'  was  what  they  always  called  her  here  in  the 
village.  She  was  always  a  small  body  and  she  never 
had  very  good  health.  She  and  her  sisters  used  to 
have  a  governess,  but  Mrs.  Gatty  teached  'em  a  lot, 
too.  Julie  used  to  visit  v.  deal  about  the  village  and 
she  was  always  good  to  talk  wi'.  Her  mother  was  a 
real  lady  and  Julie  was  like  her. 

"  When  Julie  married  —  it  was  a  weddin',  hers  !    She 


i 

*■■■■■■ 


A  Yorkshire  Village  187 

was  thowt  more  of  than  most  hany  one  aboot  here. 
She  taught  in  the  hinfant  school,  Sundays,  and  we  all 
knew  her,  and  we  all  liked  her.  The  children  all  come 
out  in  white  to  her  weddin'  and  every  one  had  flowers. 
One  little  child,  that  couldn't  much  more'n  walk,  gave 
Julie  a  whole  basket  of 'em.  There  were  hardly  a  dry 
face  in  the  church  that  mornin',  because  we  all  thowt 
Julie  were  goin'  away. 

"  And  she  did  go  away,  and  we  never  saw  her  much 
afterward ;  but  whenever  she  did  come  back,  she  were 
always  so  nice  goin'  around  to  see  all  her  old  friends." 


XIV 

A    PEEP    AT    THE    GENTRY 

THE  gentry  are  people  of  inherited  wealth  or 
position.  A  retired  tradesman  or  farmer,  what- 
ever his  fortune,  would  hardly  be  accounted  a 
"gentleman"  unless  he  was  knighted  or  had  bought 
some  ancient  estate  of  a  good  deal  of  pretension  for 
his  home.  Even  then,  the  fact  that  he  was  naturally 
plebeian  would  not  be  forgotten  by  most. 

It  seemed  to  be  the  opinion  of  the  general  public 
that  the  gentry  were,  in  the  main,  not  of  much  value 
as  a  part  of  the  national  life.  The  best  of  them  study 
politics  and  statecraft,  or  some  branch  of  science,  or 
they  interest  themselves  helpfully  in  their  tenants  and 
home  villages.  But  the  large  majority,  after  being 
sent  as  young  men  to  Oxford  or  Cambridge,  settle 
down  to  a  life  of  indolence  and  the  pursuit  of  pleasure. 
Their  greatest  accomplishment  is  very  likely  the  ability 
to  ride  well  after  the  hounds,  and  their  finest  boast  is 
of  the  times  they  have  come  in  first  in  the  hunt. 

But  while  a  fox  chase  is  one  of  the  most  spirited 

1 88 


A  Peep  at  the  Gentry 


189 


pastimes  of  the  gentry  sportsmen,  it  by  no  means 
dulls  their  relish  for  the  pursuit  of  lesser  game.  A 
stranger  on  English  roads  and  lanes  is  surprised  that 
in  so  populous  a  country  he  should  see  such  numbers 
of  rabbits,  pigeons,  partridges,  and  other  wild  creatures. 
That  this  field  life  so  abounds  is  largely  due  to  the 
gentry's  love  of  sport.  The  laws  are  strict  against 
shooting  or  trapping  out  of  season,  and  every  large 
estate  has  its  gamekeepers  to  look  out  for  the  interests 


A  Meet  of  the  Hounds 


of  the  game  and  make  war  on  trespassers.  Nature  is 
not  left  to  its  own  chances  of  luck  or  mishap,  but  the 
game  is  in  every  way  assisted  to  thrive  and  multiply. 
You  will  often  see  a  good-sized  field  dotted  over  with 


19©  Among  English  Hedgerows 

coops  where  some  gentleman  is  raising  pheasants  ;  and 
the  gamekeeper  is  always  ready  to  pay  a  shiUing  a 
dozen  for  the  eggs  to  any  one  who  chances  on  a  wild 
nest.  These  are  set  under  hens,  and  the  chicks  are 
cared  for  till  September,  when  they  are  let  loose  and 
driven  into  the  woods.  The  keeper  goes  regularly 
with  a  bag  of  grain  to  feed  them  until  the  shooting 
season  opens  the  first  part  of  October.  One  needs 
imagination  to  pretend  there  is  any  wildness  in  crea- 
tures brought  up  that  way.  Still,  there  is  no  lack  of 
enthusiasm  among  the  hunters.  Men  who,  the  week 
before,  in  London,  would  not  go  across  the  street  with- 
out hiring  a  cab,  will  tramp  twenty  or  thirty  miles  a 
day.  A  man  thinks  nothing  of  the  distance  he  travels 
if  he  is  having  "  sport."  The  hunters,  each  armed 
with  several  guns,  go  half  a  dozen  in  a  group  to  some 
covert  agreed  on,  and  a  squad  of  boys  deploys  into  the 
woods,  and,  tapping  along  on  the  trees  and  under- 
growth, they  make  the  pheasants  run  along  before 
them.  When  the  sportsmen  see  the  birds  approach- 
ing, bang,  bang,  bang,  go  the  guns  as  hard  as  ever  the 
men  can  shoot.  The  volley  will  last  without  a  pause 
perhaps  for  half  an  hour,  and  by  the  end  of  the  day 
the  party  has  slaughtered  many  hundred  head  of  game. 
The  greatest  trial  of  the  sporting  gentry  is  poaching, 
and  though  there  is  far  less  of  it  now  than  there  was  in 
the  early  half  of  the  century,  it  is  still  a  good  ways 


A  Peep  at  the  Gentry 


191 


from  being  numbered  among  the  lost  arts.    In  the  late 

summer  the  traveller  sees  from  car  windows  frequent 

fields  dotted  over  with  low  bushes  a  rod  or  two  apart. 

The     leaves     still 

cling  to  them,  and 

if  there  were  not  so 

many,    one   would 

fancy     thev     were 

small  branches  torn 

from  the  trees  in  a 

gale.      Really  they 

are    thorn    bushes 

set    firmly   in    the 

ground      by      the 

gamekeepers   on 

the    newly   cleared 

grain  fields.     Such 

fields  are  the  resort 

of  the   partridges, 

and    poachers    are 

fond    of    dragging 

their  nets  at  night 

over    the    stubble 

and  capturing  the 

birds  crouching  there.     The  net  used  is  likely  to  be 

twenty-five  feet  long  and  five  feet  high,  and  it  will  get 

torn  and  useless  in  a  field  guarded  by  thorn  bushes. 


A  Lodge  at  the  Entrance  to  a  Nobleman's 
Grounds 


192  Among  English  Hedgerows 

This  net-dragging  is  undertaken  on  nights  that  are 
dark  and  rainy.  It  is  done  very  quietly.  You  might 
hear  the  whir  of  a  bird  as  it  dashes  into  the  net,  or  see 
an  occasional  short  flash  of  a  dark  lantern,  but  that  is 
all.  If  the  suspicions  of  the  keeper  are  aroused,  he 
calls  his  dog,  arms  himself  with  a  stout  stick,  and  tries 
to  steal  up  close  to  the  poachers  and  see  who  they 
are  before  they  take  flight.  Sometimes  the  poachers 
hold  their  ground  and  there  is  a  stiflf  fight.  It  is 
said  that  a  clever  poacher  will  make  five  or  ten  pounds 
a  week.  Expeditions  are  carefully  organized,  and  a 
great  amount  of  this  stolen  game  is  shipped  to  London. 
The  poachers  are  hard  characters.  Often  they  are 
social  outcasts ;  for  when  a  man  gets  the  name  of 
being  a  habitual  poacher,  it  is  diflicult  for  him  to  find 
employment. 

On  bright  nights  the  poachers  avoid  the  opens  and 
look  for  pheasants  in  the  woods.  The  birds  roost  in 
the  trees  ;  and  to  get  a  sure  shot  at  one,  the  established 
way  is  for  the  hunter  to  move  till  he  brings  the  bird 
in  line  with  the  moon.  To  deceive  the  poachers,  the 
keepers  often  nail,  high  among  the  branches,  a  wooden 
bird  roughly  cut  out  and  touched  up  with  paint.  In 
the  dimness  of  the  night,  it  passes  readily  for  a  live 
bird ;  and  the  poachers  are  welcome  to  blaze  away  at 
it  as  long  as  they  choose.  Years  ago  great  serrated- 
jawed  man-traps  used  to  be  set  for  poachers.     These 


A  Peep  at  the  Gentry  193 

are  no  longer  employed ;  but  on  large  estates  night 
guns  are  still  set  across  paths,  and  everywhere  a  great 
deal  of  ingenuity  is  expended  in  making  the  way  of 
the  evil-doer  hard. 

The  homes  of  the  gentry  are  more  retiring  than  those 
of  the  lower  classes.  They  do  not  stand  so  near  the 
roadways,  and  there  are  grounds  about  them  where 
landscape  gardening  is  indulged  in.  The  street  view 
of  a  gentleman's  house  in  a  country  village  is  almost 
sure  to  be  cut  off  by  a  high  wall  or  hedge  and  by  the 
shrubs  and  trees  that  grow  thickly  before  it.  Privacy 
is  sought  as  a  chief  virtue ;  and  the  house  not  only 
hides  in  foliage,  but  it  faces  away  from  the  public  road. 
You  have  to  go  around  to  what  is  the  rear,  as  we 
Americans  would  think,  in  order  to  see  the  front  of 
a  mansion.  There  you  find  a  pleasant  lawn,  shade 
trees  and  winding  paths,  flower-beds  and  a  hothouse. 
A  gardener  has  charge  of  all  this,  and  his  cottage  is 
probably  not  far  away  —  near  the  stables.  The  hum- 
bler gentry  have  grounds  that  are  quite  curtailed  and 
houses  of  very  moderate  size  ;  but  those  who  can  afford 
it  live  on  what  look  like  great  ancestral  estates,  and 
their  mansions  are  large  and  massive  and  stand  far 
back  from  the  highway  in  the  midst  of  extensive  parks. 
The  greater  the  wealth,  the  larger  the  grounds  and  the 
greater  the  number  of  servants  in  the  little  army  neces- 
sary to  run  such  an  establishment.     The  titled  gentry 


194 


Among  English  Hedgerows 


A  Manor-house 

Stand  highest  in  the  social  scale,  and  they,  as  a  rule, 
are  the  ones  who  carry  the  most  style  in  their  homes. 
In  some  cases  the  gentleman's  home  is  an  ancient  castle 
—  with  modern  conveniences,  of  course  —  or  a  "pal- 
ace," and  the  park  round  about  is  large  enough  to  build 
a  city  on.  These  park-surrounded  mansions  of  the 
gentry  are  scattered  everywhere  through  the  country, 
like  plums  in  a  pudding.  No  matter  what  road  you 
travel,  you  will  catch  a  glimpse  of  one  of  these  fine 
mansions  every  few  miles. 

The  gentry  visit  a  good  deal  back  and  forth,  going 
and  coming  in  their  carriages  or  on  horseback.     They 


A  Peep  at  the  Gentry 


^9S 


are  very  much  at  home  in  the  saddle,  and  are  far  bet- 
ter pedestrians  than  Americans  of  the  same  wealth. 
Still,  it  is  the  peasantry  and  tradespeople  who  walk 
most.  Necessity  compels  in  their  case ;  and  men, 
women,  and  children,  whether  for  business  or  for  pleas- 
uring, do  a  vast  deal  of  long-distance   tramping.      A 


The  Street  Walls  of  a  Gentleman's  Estate 


196  Among  English  Hedgerows 

country  woman  of  the  lower  classes  will  undertake  eight 
or  ten  miles  of  an  afternoon  and  think  nothing  of  it. 

Of  the  local  gentry  whom  I  saw  or  heard  about  in 
my  journeyings  the  one  who  interested  me  most  was  a 
man  known  to  the  inhabitants  of  his  home  region  as 
"The  Squire,"  a  title  that  seemed  particularly  appropri- 
ate in  view  of  the  fact  that  he  was  a  large  landed-pro- 
prietor. He  was  a  fine  type  of  the  country  aristocracy, 
a  man  of  good  character  and  ancient  family,  public- 
spirited,  and  much  beloved  by  the  people  of  his  neigh- 
borhood. His  ownership  extended  over  a  track  six 
miles  long  and  three  wide,  including  within  its  bounds 
several  villages  and  a  large  number  of  scattered  farms. 

So  far  as  he  can  the  Squire  leases  the  farms,  but 
agriculture  has  not  prospered  of  late  in  Britain,  and 
many  of  the  farms  are  tenantless.  The  responsibility 
of  running  the  tenantless  farms  falls  on  the  Squire  him- 
self—  a  state  of  things  not  at  all  to  his  liking  ;  for  such 
farms,  no  matter  how  competent  the  bailiff  is  who  over- 
sees the  management  of  the  estate,  are  sure  to  deteri- 
orate and  the  buildings  on  them  gradually  fall  into 
dilapidation. 

The  Squire's  mansion  is  known  as  Hawstead  House. 
It  is  a  fine  old  stone  building,  much  overgrown  with 
ivy,  standing  in  the  midst  of  a  great  park  of  grassy  hill- 
side, which  is  broken  now  and  then  with  groves  of  trees. 
Chance  made  me  acquainted  with  the  Squire  and  he  in- 


o 


A  Peep  at  the  Gentry  199 

vited  me  to  visit  him.  When  the  time  came  I  was 
undecided  which  side  of  the  mansion  1  should  ap- 
proach. Ordinary  folk  went  around  to  an  entrance  at 
the  rear,  and  in  the  fear  that  the  front  door  was  reserved 
wholly  for  the  aristocracy  I  betook  myself  to  the  back 
way  and  was  soon  in  the  august  presence  of  the  butler. 
He  was  a  smug,  solemn-looking  fellow,  just  as  butlers, 
coachmen,  and  other  serving  men  are  the  world  over. 
Their  calling  for  some  reason  or  other  seems  to  have  a 
decided  effect  on  their  features  and  manners. 

The  butler  took  my  name  in  to  his  master,  and  find- 
ing that  the  Squire  was  engaged  for  the  moment  he  did 
the  honors  of  the  house  by  asking  me  what  I  would 
have  to  drink.  When  the  Squire  was  at  liberty  the 
butler  ushered  me  into  the  big  front  hall  with  its  dark 
winding  staircase,  heavy  furnishings,  and  oak  panelling 
hung  with  weapons  and  curiosities.  The  Squire,  a  tall, 
vigorous  man  with  a  closecropped,  gray  mustache,  was 
very  cordial,  and  when  I  made  known  my  desire  to  see 
something  of  the  house  interior  he  very  readily  became 
my  guide.  The  original  house  had  been  added  to 
from  time  to  time  by  its  long  line  of  owners  so  that 
now  it  was  an  uncertain  old  structure,  with  rooms  on 
many  different  levels  and  with  frequent  corridors  and 
hallways  that  crooked  and  turned  and  went,  one  knew 
not  whither.  It  was  rather  fascinating  —  the  great 
rooms  with  their  high  ceilings,  their  oaken  walls,  their 


200 


Among  English  Hedgerows 


numerous   oil   portraits,  and   their  wide,  many-paned 
windows.     I  looked  up  the  gaping  chimney  flues  from 


A  Country  Squire's  Walled  Garden 

the  big  fireplaces,  but  there  were  crooks  in  them  that 
kept  me  from  seeing  clear  to  the  sky.  The  Squire 
said  that  men-sweeps  continue  to  climb  them  when 
they  needed  cleaning.  Some  of  the  hallway  walls  were 
hung  with  fine  old  tapestries,  and  under  one  of  the 
stairways  was  a  secret  hiding-place.  You  would  not 
suspect  it  was  there  except  you  were  making  a  careful 
search   for   such   a   niche.     The  Squire  took  out  the 


A  Peep  at  the  Gentry 


20I 


panelling  and  I  stepped  inside  while  he  put  the  panel- 
ling in  again.  A  little  light  streaked  in  from  cracks  in 
the  stairs,  but  I  did  not  much  fancy  the  situation. 
One  could  lie  down  in  the  place  at  full  length,  but  he 
could  not  stand  upright..  The  last  room  I  visited  was 
the  library.  Its  walls  were  lined  from  floor  to  ceiling 
with  volumes  in  leather  bindings,  and  so  many  of  them 


An  Ancestral  Hall 


were  old  and  rare  that  the  place  was  one  calculated  to 
throw  a  book-lover  into  ecstasies. 

The  tour  of  the  house  was  a  great  pleasure,  and  the 


202  Among  English  Hedgerows 

Squire  was  so  kind  and  friendly  and  his  personality  so 
attractive  that  I  came  away  with  more  of  a  liking  for 
the  aristocracy  as  exemplified  by  him  than  was  perhaps 
proper  in  a  subject  of  our  American  republic. 


XV 


CASTLES    AND    CATHEDRALS 


TO  one  who  lives  in  a  country  that  has  no  med- 
iaeval past  there  is  nothing  in  England  that 
so  stirs  the  imagination  as  an  ancient  castle. 
Towering  walls,  deep  dungeons,  knights  and  ladies, 
brave  deeds,  black  crimes,  and  a  strange  old  life  are  all 
interwoven  in  the  mind  in  a  fascinating  fabric  of  mys- 
tery that  makes  the  idea  of  a  castle  like  a  bit  of 
fairyland. 

I  did  not  realize  when  I  first  reached  England  that 
its  castles  numbered  many  hundreds.  I  had  the  feeling 
that  they  were  rarities,  and  I  seized  the  first  favorable 
opportunity  to  hunt  up  one.  This  opportunity  came 
when  I  was  in  Bawtry,  Nottinghamshire,  and  the  castle 
was  at  Tichill,  four  miles  distant  —  not  too  far  to  walk, 
I  thought. 

The  afternoon  I  went  in  quest  of  Tichill  Castle  was 
warm  and  pleasant  and  very  quiet.  Nature  seemed 
asleep,  and  humanity  appeared  to  share  in  the  lethargy 
of  the  day,  for  I  saw  hardly  any  one  on  the  road  save 

203 


204 


Among  English  Hedgerows 


A  Castle  Entrance 


a  tramp  and  a  clergyman.  The  former  stopped  me, 
told  a  tale  of  woe,  and  begged  for  a  penny.  The  latter 
whom  I  overtook  sauntering  along  in  my  direction  gave 
me  a  friendly  greeting  and  we  kept  company  for  some 


Castles  and  Cathedrals  205 

distance.  At  parting  we  shook  hands  and  the  clergy- 
man said,  "  I  hope  we  may  meet  in  a  better  clime, 
hereafter." 

I  acquiesced  in  his  hope,  and  yet  I  resented  his 
remark  a  little,  for  the  day  was  so  perfect  I  thought 
England  was  good  enough  for  me. 

At  length  I  entered  Tichill  village  and  walked  down 
a  long  street  of  low,  huddling  houses,  till  on  the  farther 
borders  of  the  hamlet  I  sighted  masses  of  foliage  and 
the  steep  mound  of  a  hill  and  caught  a  glimpse  of  high 
gables  and  tall  chimney-stacks.  Then  I  passed  under 
an  arch  of  trees  and  came  out  in  a  pretty  open  where 
there  was  a  little  mill-pond  and  a  pair  of  swans  dab- 
bling about  on  its  surface.  Just  back  from  the  water's 
edge  a  wide,  stone-walled  path  led  up  to  the  castle  gate. 
At  last  I  was  in  the  presence  of  a  real  castle,  and  there 
was  no  alloy  in  the  pleasure  of  gazing  at  these  gray 
outer  portals,  so  massive  and  so  old  with  the  dappling 
shadows  of  the  new-starting  foliage  falling  on  them 
from  the  big  trees  about.  Under  the  walls  skirting 
away  to  the  right  and  left  was  the  castle  moat,  a 
deep  hollow  full  of  water  completely  overhung  by  the 
bordering  trees. 

I  went  through  the  great  stone  archway  of  the  castle 
gate  presently,  and  found  myself  in  a  little  park  of  close- 
clipped  lawn  with  flower-beds  here  and  there  and  shrubs 
and  winding  paths.     A  gardener  was  at  work  on  the 


2o6  Among  English  Hedgerows 

lawn  and  he  showed  me  around.  But  the  gate  was  the 
finest  thing  on  the  place.  The  present  Tichill  Castle 
is  a  modern  building,  and  though  it  looked  very  hand- 
some with  the  tall  trees  at  its  back  where  the  rooks  were 
busy  among  their  nests  in  the  topmost  boughs,  it  had 
not  the  charm  of  the  ancient  gateway. 

I  saw  many  castles  in  my  later  wanderings  about 
England,  some  of  them  complete  and  habitable,  but 
more  having  only  ruined  remnants  left  to  suggest  the 
impressiveness  of  what  they  must  have  been  in  their 
prime.  They  never  lost  their  interest  for  me,  however 
fragmentary;  but  I  will  only  speak  particularly  of  those 
of  Scarborough,  Warwick,  and  Kenilworth. 

The  day  I  went  to  Scarborough  was  hot,  early,  but 
grew  cooler  toward  evening  as  the  result  of  several 
heavy  showers,  that  were  accompanied  with  thunder 
and  flashes  of  lightning.  The  fields  were  drenched, 
the  tall  grass  was  lodged  down,  and  wide  pools  gath- 
ered in  the  depressions.  It  was  eight  o'clock  when  I 
reached  Scarborough,  but  enough  light  still  lingered 
to  lend  attraction  to  the  idea  of  a  walk  to  the  castle. 
The  streets  were  wet,  and  a  fog  was  creeping  in  from 
the  ocean. 

The  castle  lay  high  on  a  wild  ridge  next  the  sea.  It 
loomed  strange  and  mysterious  through  the  evening 
vapors  as  I  climbed  toward  it,  and  was  as  dreamily  illu- 
sive as  a  novel  of  the  days  of  chivalry.     One  felt  as  if 


Scarborough  Castle 


Castles  and  Cathedrals  209 

time's  dial  had  been  turned  far  back,  and  the  ears  were 
intent  for  the  sound  of  a  horn  from  some  turret  to 
herald  one's  approach,  or  looked  for  the  outcoming  of 
some  mailed  knight  from  the  gloomy  portals  of  the 
entrance.  But  all  was  silent,  deserted,  dead,  and  in 
the  mists  the  scene  was  like  a  vision  of  the  sleep  that 
might  in  a  moment  fade  and  disappear.  I  felt  as  if 
I  were  an  interloper,  an  enemy  trying  to  steal  up 
under  the  walls  without  alarming  the  castle  inmates. 

Presently  I  went  under  a  great  arch  and  stood  on  the 
edge  of  a  long  descent  that  dropped  steeply  away  to 
a  stretch  of  sandy  shore  where  the  great  surfy  billows 
were  rolling  in  from  the  vast  blank  of  fog,  seaward. 
On  the  other  side  of  the  ridge  lay  the  town.  I  could 
not  see  it,  but  the  distant  sounds  of  voices,  footsteps, 
the  barking  of  dogs,  the  cries  of  little  children,  rose  to 
me,  and  a  few  dim  lights  shone  faintly  in  the  depths. 
Yet  there  was  no  visible  connection  between  all  this 
and  the  little  spot  of  ground  clearly  discerned  close 
about  where  I  stood,  and  the  region  below  did  not  at 
all  suggest  a  town.  Rather,  il  was  as  if  I  was  looking 
down  on  Hades  from  the  high  heavens  floating  in 
misty  ether. 

Once  there  was  a  rift  in  the  fog,  and  the  dark  battle- 
ments along  the  hilltop  came  out  clear  and  cold,  and 
the  near  buildings  below  crept  into  sight  and  then  other 
buildings  beyond,  till  there  lay  the  whole  town  circling 


2IO 


Among  English  Hedgerows 


around  a  little  harbor  where  the  ships  were  rocking  at 
anchor,  and  all  the  town  was  twinkling  with  lights. 
But  in  a  few  moments  the  vapors  again  closed  in  and 
the  town  was  ingulfed  and  blotted  out,  and  the  defiant 
old  walls  of  the  castle  went  back  to  their  dreams. 


Warwick  Castle  from  the  Court  Lawn 

Next  day,  in  the  warm  sunshine  of  a  moist,  clearing 
morning,  I  was  again  up  at  the  castle  and  went  within 
the  walls  and  climbed  the  crooked,  fortified  roadway 
that  led  to  the  hilltop.  On  the  height  was  a  wide 
level  of  quiet  grass-land  where  cows  were  grazing,  and 
on  the  farther  side  a  black  row  of  cannon  looking  over 


Castles  and  Cathedrals  2ii 

the  cliff  toward  the  sea.  In  one  place  was  a  little  shanty 
where  lemonade  and  light  drinks  were  sold,  in  another 
some  tenement-like  soldiers'  barracks,  and  near  these 
several  little  garden  patches  close  under  the  crumbling 
castle  walls. 

The  surroundings  of  Warwick  Castle  are  quite  unlike 
those  of  Scarborough.  A  winding  river  flows  close  by, 
and  there  are  great  trees  all  about  and  meadows  where 
the  tall  grasses  grow.  The  castle  is  on  a  low  hill  and 
has  a  clean  old  town  adjoining.  It  is  in  perfect  repair 
and  is  the  residence  of  the  Earl  of  Warwick.  After  you 
pass  through  the  outer  gate  you  go  up  a  winding  lane 
sunk  in  the  solid  rock,  and  thrown  into  a  cool  twilight 
by  the  overhanging  trees.  Then  you  come  out  on  a 
lawn  and  have  the  irregular  walls  and  high  towers  of 
the  castle  before  you.  Follow  the  gravelled  path  and 
cross  the  bridge  that  spans  the  now  dry  and  grassy  moat 
and  you  enter  a  long  arched  way  that  runs  under  the 
massive  inner  gate.  The  porter  opens  the  gate  and  you 
go  into  the  broad  square  of  lawn  that  makes  the  inner 
court,  where  a  dozen  or  more  peacocks  are  trailing  about 
and  every  now  and  then  showing  themselves  off  by 
spreading  out  their  tails. 

A  guide  took  a  party  of  us  through  the  castle.  We 
saw  the  family's  private  chapel  where  they  have  prayers 
every  morning  under  their  own  private  chaplain  with 
their  own  private  organist  and  private  squad  of  six  choir 


212  Among  English  Hedgerows 

boys  who  come  in  regularly  from  the  town  to  take  part. 
The  chapel  was  a  snug  little  room  just  like  a  small 
church.  We  went  through  the  armory,  saw  old  guns 
and  old  swords,  helmets,  and  quantities  of  other  war- 
like relics. 

Then  we  visited  the  red  room,  the  gilt  room,  the  cedar 
drawing-room,  the  great  hall,  private  dining-room,  etc. 
Altogether,  it  was  a  very  giddy  place  and  reminded  one 
of  a  set  of  genteel  auction  rooms  or  a  furniture  ware- 
house or  some  sort  of  museum.  Things  looked  as  if 
made  and  set  out  for  display  rather  than  use.  The 
furnishings  all  seemed  too  brilliant  and  fine  and  uncom- 
fortable for  one  to  ever  hope  to  get  on  familiar  terms 
with  them.  Gilt  and  color  were  everywhere,  only  this 
brilliancy  was  of  the  circus-wagon  order,  and  was  funny 
rather  than  impressive.  One  would  expect  to  feel  com- 
pelled to  pose  and  talk  book  language  all  the  time  in 
such  apartments. 

By  the  depth  of  the  window  recesses  you  could  see 
that  the  walls  were  close  to  ten  feet  thick,  but  the  stone 
in  most  of  the  rooms  was  entirely  hidden  from  sight  by 
the  wooden  casings.  There  were  many  paintings  on  the 
walls  —  mostly  portraits.  The  guide  as  we  went  along 
told  who  the  originals  of  the  portraits  were,  who  painted 
which,  and  also  settled  their  artistic  merits  for  us.  I  was 
sorry  for  the  guide.  He  had  drawn  in  his  breath  and 
made  those  same  remarks  to  fourteen  different  parties 


Castles  and  Cathedrals  213 

that  day.  He  looked  tired  of  it,  and  whenever  he  had 
to  tell  the  routine  story  of  a  room  and  its  contents  he 
would  straighten  up,  fill  his  chest,  and  grind  out  a  set 
description  like  a  hand-organ. 

In  the  state  bedroom  was  a  queer  old  bed  with  a  can- 
opy over  it  that  was  hoisted  high  up  toward  the  ceiling 
on  lofty  corner  posts.  Queen  Anne,  Queen  Victoria, 
and  other  such  people  had  slept  in  this  bed.  A  table 
richly  inlaid  was  pointed  out  in  another  room  '*  valued 
at  j^io,ooo,"  and  some  enamelled  dishes  that  were 
"  priceless."  When  we  finished  our  tour  I  never  before 
had  been  so  thankful  that  I  was  not  an  earl  or  a  lord. 

One  other  place  I  visited  was  the  dungeons.  The 
guide  lit  a  candle,  and  we  groped  our  way  down  a  narrow 
stair  into  the  depths  of  the  earth.  The  air  had  a  dead 
coolness  and  dampness,  and  I  should  think  a  person 
kept  there,  with  only  one  or  two  stray  gleams  of  light 
from  the  outer  world  coming  down  through  the  narrow 
apertures  that  served  for  windows,  would  very  soon 
mould  into  death.  The  guide  pointed  out  some  deep 
grooves  in  the  wall  worn  by  the  chains  of  the  prisoners 
who  had  been  bound  there  by  the  wrists,  and  he  called 
our  attention  to  certain  rat-holes  and  some  hollows  in 
the  stone  blocks  that  seemed  to  have  been  made  by 
the  action  of  water.  Yes,  the  guide  said,  the  stones 
were  actually  water-worn  —  it  was  done  by  the  "jew" 
that  came  in  from  the  larger  window. 


214  Among  English  Hedgerows 

If  Warwick  is  one  of  the  finest  of  English  castles 
still  used  as  a  residence,  Kenilworth,  barely  five  miles 
distant,  is  among  the  finest  of  those  in  ruins. 

On  the  evening  that  I  arrived  at  Kenilworth  town 
I  found  a  boy  on  the  station  platform  looking  for  a  job, 
and  I  handed  over  my  box  to  him.  Outside,  he  had  a 
wheelbarrow  with  a  small  dog  tied  to  it.  With  the  boy, 
barrow,  dog,  and  baggage  I  went  off  up  through  the 
village  to  an  ivy-grown  old  hotel  a  mile  from  the  station 
called  the  "  Queen  and  Castle,"  and  there  I  engaged 
lodging. 

Kenilworth  ruin  was  just  across  the  road  from  the 
hotel,  and  its  great  ragged  towers  were  in  plain  sight 
over  the  massive  outer  walls  that  encircled  the  domain. 
It  has  such  a  famous  history  and  is  so  connected  with 
the  stir  and  combat  of  the  "  Kenilworth  "  of  Sir  Walter 
Scott  that  it  seemed  strange  to  find  it  and  its  surround- 
ings so  tranquil.  All  the  neighborhood  had  an  air  of 
permanent  repose  and  uneventfulness  that  made  those 
old  days  with  their  wars  and  intrigues  and  pageants  as 
unreal  as  dreams.  It  is  a  graveyard  of  feudal  unrest 
and  splendor  and  has  all  a  graveyard's  quiet.  I  could 
not  but  feel  that,  in  harmony  with  what  it  had  been, 
there  ought  at  least  to  be,  even  in  the  prosaic  present, 
a  stalking  of  midnight  ghosts  with  all  sorts  of  attendant 
fearful  sights  and  sounds  to  give  a  proper  snap  to  the 
vicinity. 


Castles  and  Cathedrals  217 

After  a  lunch  at  my  hotel  I  walked  by  lanes  and  paths 
across  the  fields  through  many  gates  and  over  many 
stiles  and  made  a  long  circuit  completely  around  the 
old  ruin.  It  was  always  charming,  no  matter  whence 
I  looked  at  it. 

Next  morning  I  paid  sixpence  and  went  into  the  cas- 
tle grounds.  The  various  structures  that  make  up  the 
castle  are  delightfully  ruinous  and  much  adorned  with 
green  tresses  of  ivy  ;  but  the  lawn-like  grounds  did  not 
match  the  weather-shattered  aspect  of  the  great  walls, 
and  I  liked  the  castle  best  as  seen  from  the  fields  out- 
side. It  took  some  time  to  go  through  all  the  pas- 
sages and  climb  all  the  deep-worn  steps  and  look  down 
into  the  dungeons  and  up  the  hollow,  topless  towers. 
Along  the  sky  line  of  the  walls  was  a  rank  growth  of 
grasses  and  shrubs,  and  a  colony  of  jackdaws  was  con- 
stantly fluttering  about  the  high  crannies.  On  the  lawn, 
not  far  from  the  walls,  were  several  peacocks  in  a  narrow 
enclosure  bounded  by  a  hedge.  They  seemed  to  feel 
low  in  their  minds  and  from  time  to  time  would  squall 
out  in  the  most  loud-voiced  and  distressing  manner. 

Kenilworth  in  its  prime  was  notable  for  its  size  and 
beauty  and  though  it  has  been  in  ruins  for  hundreds 
of  years,  it  still  is  rich  in  hints  of  grandeur  and  archi- 
tectural charm.  Even  aside  from  its  historic  interest 
it  possesses  great  attractions,  and  no  castle  in  the  king- 
dom is  better  worthy  of  a  pilgrimage. 


21 8  Among  English  Hedgerows 

Castles  are  often  amid  rural  surroundings,  but  cathe- 
drals are  of  course  never  found  outside  the  city  centres. 
Yet  in  almost  every  instance  their  lofty  towers  make 
them  striking  features  of  the  landscape  as  seen  from  the 
farm  regions  for  miles  about.  Aside  from  its  height 
and  size  a  cathedral  has  usually  a  conspicuous  site,  and 
it  never  fails  to  make  itself  felt  beyond  all  the  other 
buildings  in  the  city. 

How  beautiful  the  many-towered  cathedral  is  at  Ely, 
as  it  Hfts  itself  above  the  green  trees  and  low  red  roofs 
of  the  town.  How  gracefully  the  single  spires  of  Salis- 
bury and  Norwich  leap  upward  into  the  blue  sky.  What 
massive  grandeur  there  is  about  the  cathedrals  at  York 
and  Lincoln  and  Durham.  How  graceful  the  pinnacled 
tower  of  the  one  at  Gloucester,  and  what  a  delight- 
ful great  building  Canterbury  Cathedral  is,  whether 
seen  from  the  crooked  streets  of  the  town,  or  from  its 
grounds  among  the  fine  trees  and  lawns,  or  from  the 
meadows  beyond  the  village.  Nearly  all  the  cathedral 
towns  have  a  beautiful  little  river  close  by,  and  it  is 
hinted  that  the  monks  of  old  when  they  founded  the 
cathedrals  had  an  eye  to  the  advantages  of  being  close 
to  a  good  fish  stream. 

When  near  to  a  cathedral,  it  is  its  immensity  that 
impresses  you  ;  when  far  off,  it  is  its  grace.  I  won- 
dered what  the  effect  of  just  the  same  buildings  would 
be  in  our  American  cities.     Large  and  grand  as  they 


Durham  Cathedral 


Castles  and  Cathedrals  221 

are,  I  think  they  would  lose  a  great  part  of  their  im- 
pressiveness.  Our  town  dwellings  and  business  blocks 
are  so  much  higher  than  those  of  England  that  they 
would  tend  to  dwarf  and  hide  a  cathedral  in  their  midst 
—  even  a  very  great  one. 

The  cathedral  interiors  I  found  a  little  disappointing. 
They  seemed  bare  and  cold  and  to  lack  color,  and. 


Gloucester  Cathedral 


as  places  of  worship,  I  thought  them  overgrown  and 
clumsy.  Yet  they  were  all  impressively  big.  The  lofty 
vacancy  of  their  vast,  vault-like  aisles  and  chambers, 


222  Among  English  Hedgerows 

flanked  by  high  pillars  and  domed  by  Gothic  arches, 
made  the  people  walking  about  on  the  floor  appear  like 
pygmies.  It  was  this  sense  of  great  size  that  gave  me 
most  pleasure  in  the  cathedral  interiors ;  for,  whatever 
their  lacks  might  be,  their  vastness  always  gave  them 
dignity. 


XVI 

A    GLIMPSE    OF    THE    LAKE    COUNTRY 

ENGLAND,  as  compared  with  the  other  divi- 
sions of  Britain,  gives  one  an  impression  of 
unusual  comfort,  fertility,  and  prosperity. 
Nature  smiles  on  it,  and  in  its  outward  aspect  — 
the  gentle  richness  of  its  landscape,  its  tree-sheltered 
homes,  and  even  its  busy  towns  —  it  seems  to  a  rare 
degree  blessed  and  beautiful. 

One  feels  the  charm  of  England  when  one  arrives 
from  across  the  Atlantic,  and  one  feels  much  the  same 
charm  in  coming  into  it  after  touring  in  Ireland.  The 
Irish  bogs  and  poverty  are  in  striking  contrast  with  the 
attractiveness  of  England's  well-tilled  fields.  So,  too, 
when  one  crosses  the  line  at  Carlisle  in  coming  south 
into  England  from  Scotland,  the  difference  seems  quite 
marked ;  the  country  is  at  once  better  wooded,  the 
fields  more  productive  looking,  and  the  hills  mellower. 
Scotland  is  comparatively  bare  and  rugged,  and  lacks  the 
full,  generous  aspect  of  England  that  is  so  satisfying. 

Perhaps   I   would   have  felt  this   contrast  between 

223 


224 


Among  English  Hedgerows 


Scotland  and  England  less  had   I   not   in  journeying 
south  from  the  former  entered  almost  at  once  the  Lake 


Grasmere 

District,  than  which  no  part  of  Britain  has  a  greater 
reputation  for  beauty.  It  is  set  off  from  the  rest  of 
the  kingdom  as  a  sort  of  national  park  purely  by 
public  sentiment.  Great  numbers  of  city  people  have 
country  homes  there ;  and  tourists,  in  the  season, 
resort  to  it  by  thousands.  Every  care  is  taken  to  pre- 
serve its  rural  charm  ;  and  railroads  are  not  allowed 
to  invade  its  hills  and  valleys,  but  are  compelled  to 
stop  on  the  borders. 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Lake  Country  225 

I  chose  to  enter  the  Lake  District  at  Windermere. 
There  I  found  myself  at  the  end  of  the  railroad,  in  a 
vacation  village  abounding  in  hotels  and  full  of  private 
houses,  that  were  nearly  all  marked,  "  Apartments  to 
Let."  The  suburbs  of  the  village  were  plotted  off  in 
park-like  grounds ;  and  back  among  the  trees  were 
many  fine  houses  —  the  homes  of  gentry  who  have 
business  in  neighboring  cities.  Through  all  this  region 
run  innumerable  coaches,  and  their  rattle  in  the  village 
streets  was  almost  ceaseless. 

Aside  from  exploring  Windermere  and  its  vicinity, 
the  only  excursion  I  found  time  for  while  in  the  Lake 
District  was  one  to  Grasmere.  The  trip  was  made  on 
a  pleasant,  cool  day  of  clear  sunlight  —  ideal  weather 
for  touring.  Our  coach  passed  along  the  northern 
borders  of  Windermere  Lake,  skirted  the  eastern  edge 
of  Rydal  Water,  and  for  the  last  mile  was  close  by  the 
shore  of  Grasmere  Lake.  The  steep  hills  that  heaved 
about,  the  frequent  woods,  the  pleasant  fields,  and  the 
dimpling  lakes,  so  closely  linked  together,  made  the 
outlooks  from  the  coach-top  very  delightful.  Besides, 
the  region  was  full  of  associations  with  many  of  Eng- 
land's famous  writers,  in  particular  with  William 
Wordsworth. 

At  the  quiet  little  village  of  Grasmere  the  poet  lies 
buried.  His  grave,  marked  by  a  simple  marble  slab, 
is  at  the  rear  of  the  churchyard  in  the  shadow  of  the 


226  Among  English  Hedgerows 

broad  old  stone  church.  A  short  walk  distant  is  the 
lake,  bounded  by  meadow  stretches,  with  high,  bare 
hills  of  easy  outline  at  a  little  remove.  In  the  midst 
of  the  lake  is  a  grassy  island  crowned  by  a  group  of 
pines.  Numbers  of  boats  were  moving  about  the  lake. 
The  occupants  were  some  of  them  out  just  for  the 
pleasure  of  rowing,  others  for  the  fishing.  Cows  were 
grazing  along  the  shore  or  standing  in  the  shallows. 
In  the  reedy  borders  of  the  lake, a  few  pond-lilies  were 
in  hiding.     The  scene  was  a  very  peaceful  one. 

But  not  so  on  the  roads,  for  every  highway  was  full 
of  coaches,  carriages  of  all  sorts,  cycles,  and  pedestrians. 
The  region  was  overflowing  with  tourists  and  sight- 
seers, and  about  every  other  person  seemed  to  carry 
a  camera. 

One  of  the  favorite  walks  from  Grasmere  is  to 
Easedale  Tarn  far  up  on  the  hills.  I  had  never  seen 
a  mountain  tarn.  I  only  knew  of  them  in  the  pages 
of  Sir  Walter  Scott  as  something  very  romantic,  and 
the  idea  of  visiting  this  tarn  was  quite  attractive.  The 
noonday  sun  was  at  its  hottest  when  I  started,  and  I 
had  to  go  more  than  two  miles  along  a  baked  country 
road  before  I  came  to  the  path  that  climbed  the  hills.. 
Numbers  of  other  tourists  were  making  the  same  pil- 
grimage, but  the  heat  and  the  increasing  roughness  of 
the  route  made  the  weak-willed  and  the  fleshy  lag,  and 
many  turned  back. 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Lake  Country  227 

Cultivated  fields  and  wooded  patches  were  presently 
left  entirely  behind  and  I  was  skirting  the  steep  ridges 
of  a  mountain.  Like  all  British  mountains  it  was  one 
vast,  almost  treeless,  upheaval  of  pasturage,  its  grassy 
slopes  only  broken  by  occasional  gray  shoulders  of 
rock  thrusting  through  the  turf  and  by  here  and  there 
an  expanse  of  gray  green  "  bracken  "  (ferns). 


A  Mountain  Tarn 


The  path  most  of  the  way  kept  along  a  small  stream 
tumbling  through  a  bare  rocky  hollow  and  in  one  place 
breaking  into  a  foamy  waterfall  known  as  "Sour-milk 
Force."     The  source  of  the  stream  I  at  length  found 


228  Among  English  Hedgerows 

was  the  tarn  I  sought  —  a  little  lake  on  the  mountain 
top  in  a  pocket  of  dark  grazing  slopes  and  craggy  hills. 
On  a  terrace  just  back  from  the  water's  edge  stood  a 
lonely  shepherd's  hut  where  simple  refreshments  were 
for  sale,  and  quite  a  number  of  people  were  lunching 
near  by. 

The  return  journey  was  comparatively  quick  and 
easy,  and  the  views  of  the  mountains  and  the  outlooks 
over  the  wide  depths  of  valley  that  spread  around  were 
much  more  enjoyable  than  on  the  toilsome  way  up. 
When  I  was  again  in  Grasmere  I  was  reminded  that 
this  was  the  day  following  Palm  Sunday,  and  I  learned 
that  it  was  the  local  habit  to  commemorate  the  occasion 
yearly  with  a  celebration.  It  began  with  a  service  in 
the  church,  after  which  the  children,  each  bearing  a 
garland,  marched  to  the  village  green.  The  proces- 
sion was  led  by  a  baby  sitting  in  its  little  carriage, 
and  the  vehicle  was  so  bedecked  with  flowers  that  it 
was  entirely  hidden,  even  to  the  wheel  spokes. 

As  soon  as  they  arrived  at  the  green  the  children 
gathered  about  several  long  tables  spread  with  white 
cloths  and  were  served  with  bread  and  butter,  cakes, 
and  weak  tea. 

No  sooner  was  the  lunch  finished  than  the  children 
ran  pell-mell  to  a  toy-laden  table  under  a  wide-armed 
beech  tree.  The  toys  there  displayed  each  cost  a  penny 
or  so,  and  no  child  failed  to  buy  something  —  the  boys 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Lake  Country  229 

usually  a  horn  or  other  noise-maker,  the  girls  some 
fancy  object  that  appealed  to  the  eye  rather  than  to  the 
ear.  From  that  time  on  the  tootings  and  snaps  and 
cracks  were  continuous,  and  every  child  was  eagerly 
running  about  to  show  its  purchases  and  see  what  the 
others  had  bought. 

A  swing  had  been  set  up  at  one  side  of  the  green, 
and  on  the  other  side  were  two  May-poles  hung  with 
gay  ribbons.  It  was  a  pretty  sight  to  see  the  children 
clinging  to  the  ribbons  and  running  about  the  poles. 
There  was  no  lack  of  onlookers,  for  besides  the  mothers 
and  older  sisters  who  were  out  in  force  there  were  crowds 
of  other  folk  who  lingered  on  the  borders  of  the  green 
enjoying  at  second  hand  the  merrymaking  of  the  little 
people. 

A  young  man  with  a  great  deal  of  good  nature  and 
love  of  fun  twinkling  behind  his  eye-glasses  superin- 
tended the  sports  among  the  boys.  One  of  these  sports 
was  a  wrestling  match.  All  the  lads  who  cared  to  take 
part  threw  their  caps  into  a  pile  and  then  a  boy  knelt 
before  the  pile  while  a  companion  put  his  hands  over 
the  kneeling  one's  eyes.  That  done,  the  blinded  boy 
picked  up  the  caps  at  random,  two  at  a  time.  In  this 
way  partners  were  chosen  and  the  boys  paired  accord- 
ing as  their  caps  were  handed  out.  Then  a  ring  was 
formed  and  the  pairs  in  turn  wrestled.  The  beaten 
ones  dropped  out  of  the  game.     Then  the  victorious 


230 


Among  English  Hedgerows 


contestants  threw  their  caps  in  a  pile  as  before,  paired 
again,  wrestled,  and  so  went  on  till  only  one  boy  re- 
mained —  the  champion  of  the  field. 

Another  sport  that  was  entered  into  with  enthusiasm 
was  a  sack  race.  About  a  score  of  boys  got  into  bags 
and  had  them  tied  securely  about  their  necks.     When 


Harvesting  Oats  in  Westmoreland 

preparing  to  start  they  all  lay  down  in  a  row,  but  at 
the  word  "  Go  "  they  squirmed  to  their  feet  and  hob- 
bled away  down  the  field.  There  was  no  end  to  the 
mishaps  and  tumbles,  but  they  raced  again  and  again. 
Small  money  prizes  in  this  and  other  games  were  given 
to  winners.     The  good-natured  young  man  who  acted 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Lake  Country  231 

as  judge  and  director  distributed  the  prizes.  He 
seemed  to  have  an  unlimited  supply  of  coppers  in  his 
pockets. 

The  boys  in  their  play  were  often  rough  and  loud. 
The  girls  were  much  quieter  and  less  bumptious. 
They  appeared  to  have  more  responsibility  than  the 
boys,  for  most  of  the  older  girls  had  younger  members 
of  the  family  in  their  charge,  and  in  the  view  of  the 
care-takers  these  toddlers  had  abnormal  tendencies  to 
stray  away  and  get  into  trouble.  The  result  was  that 
when  one  of  the  larger  girls  engaged  in  a  game  you 
would  see  her  at  its  close  on  an  anxious  quest  after  one 
of  the  little  ones  that  had  meanwhile  wandered. 

The  morning  following  my  Grasmere  trip  was 
rainy,  but  the  weather  cleared  at  noon  and  I  walked 
from  Windermere  south  into  the  farming  region. 
The  lake,  ruffled  into  silver  by  a  brisk  breeze,  was  in 
sight  much  of  the  time.  This  body  of  water,  ten 
miles  long,  is  the  largest  lake  in  England. 

In  a  roadside  field  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  some 
men  at  work  in  the  oats.  An  old  man  was  reaping 
and  two  younger  men  followed  after,  binding.  The 
former  used  a  scythe  that  had  a  clumsy-looking  tri- 
angle of  canvas  erected  at  the  rear  of  the  blade  to  catch 
the  grain.  On  the  end  of  the  scythe  handle  was 
strapped  what  the  man  called  a  strickle,  but  what  on 
the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic  is  known  as  a  whetstone. 


232  Among  English   Hedgerows 

While  I  was  talking  with  the  men  three  o'clock 
came  and  they  went  to  the  house  for  tea,  and  I  ac- 
cepted their  invitation  and  went,  too.  The  house  and 
barns  and  sheds  were  all  of  whitewashed  stone.  A 
pretty  porch  with  many  flowering  plants  growing  on 
either  side  overarched  the  kitchen  entrance.  The  door 
here  was  massive  enough  for  a  jail.  It  was  of  oak, 
beaded  with  heavy  nails,  and  the  lock  was  something 
huge.  The  farmer  showed  me  the  key  which  was 
nearly  a  foot  long,  but  he  said  something  was  the 
matter,  and  it  wouldn't  turn  the  bolt.  He  thought 
they  would  have  to  get  a  new  lock  sometime. 

The  kitchen  was  a  picturesque  interior  with  its  stone 
floors,  its  blackened  beams  overhead,  a  tall  clock,  a 
dresser  full  of  crockery,  and  many  mugs  and  pitchers 
hung  along  the  walls.  The  farmer's  wife  had  just 
come  in  from  putting  out  her  washing.  She  said  she 
had  finished  that  morning  a  seven  weeks'  wash.  Until 
the  rains  of  a  few  days  before  there  had  been  no  water 
in  their  well  for  all  that  time.  When  she  found  I  was 
interested  in  the  old  house  she  showed  me  through  it, 
even  took  me  upstairs  by  a  crooked  stairway,  where 
the  ceiling  came  so  low  near  the  top  that  unless  one 
was  more  on  his  guard  than  I  was,  he  got  his  head 
bumped.  The  floors  of  these  upper  rooms  were 
warped  and  uneven,  and  their  contents  were  in  much 
disorder.     The   woman   showed   with   pride   a  corner 


Washing 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Lake  Country  2^^ 

cupboard  full  of  quaint  old  china.  There  were  many 
came  to  see  this  crockery  who  would  like  to  buy  it, 
she  said,  but  it  wouldn't  be. sold  —  not  till  after  she 
was  dead  and  buried,  anyway. 

After  lunch  1  walked  back  to  Windermere.  I  had 
found  my  farm  acquaintances  very  pleasant  and  kindly  ; 
but  their  dialect  was  something  of  a  drawback  to  easy 
intercourse.  It  was  peculiar  in  intonation  and  strange 
in  many  of  its  words.  Often  I  did  not  catch  the  mean- 
ing of  what  was  said ;  and  when  they  spoke  among 
themselves,  it  sounded  like  a  foreign  language. 


XVII 


IN    KENT    AND    SUSSEX 


ONE  of  the  most  attractive  parts  of  England  I 
saw  in  my  random  journeyings  was  that  about 
the  beautiful  old  village  of  Aylesford  in  the 
county  of  Kent.  Anything  more  luscious  and  charm- 
ing than  this  fertile  district  with  its  fine  trees  and  varie- 
gated hills  and  dales  it  would  be  difficult  to  imagine. 

Aylesford  is  on  a  little  tidal  river  called  the  Medway 
—  a  stream  that,  though  narrow  and  very  crooked,  yet 
has  a  good  many  little  steamers  with  barges  in  tow  ply- 
ing up  and  down  it.  All  this  traffic  passes  under  a 
queer  old  bridge  that  humps  itself  over  the  stream  in 
the  midst  of  the  village.  The  bridge  has  to  have  high 
arches  to  allow  the  boats  to  slip  beneath  easily,  and  as 
the  banks  of  the  stream  are  low  just  here,  the  highway 
has  a  steep  climb  going  up  to  the  peak  of  the  bridge 
from  the  level  of  one  shore  and  a  steep  descent  getting 
down  to  the  level  of  the  shore  opposite. 

It  was  as  picturesque  a  bridge  as  one  could  meet 
with,  and  the  very  first  time  I  saw  it  I  went  down  to 

236 


CO 


<^ 


In  Kent  and  Sussex  239 

the  bottom  of  a  cottage  garden  close  by  to  get  a  bet- 
ter view  of  it.  A  woman  in  the  cottage  noticed  the 
object  of  my  interest,  and  it  was  not  long  before  she 
came  down  the  garden  path  and  interrupted  my 
admiration  of  the  rugged  grace  of  the  bridge  by  in- 
forming me  that  it  was  very  old-fashioned  and  incon- 
venient and  that  there  was  talk  of  replacing  it.  The 
roadway  that  ran  over  it  was  only  wide  enough  for 
a  single  cart  to  go  along  at  a  time  with  no  space  to 
spare  even  for  foot-passengers.  It  is  true  there  were 
bastions  at  intervals  into  which  persons  on  foot  were 
supposed  to  step  when  they  saw  a  team  approaching, 
but  nevertheless  the  woman  said  lots  of  people  had 
come  near  getting  run  over.  I  suppose  her  facts  were 
correct,  yet,  after  all,  I  would  rather  the  old  bridge 
should  stand. 

About  two  miles  out  in  the  country  from  Aylesford 
is  an  ancient  Druidical  monument  known  as  Kit's  Coty 
House,  and  every  one  in  the  region  who  recognized  me 
as  a  tourist  boasted  of  this  Kit's  Coty  House  and  asked 
if  I  had  seen  it,  till  my  curiosity  was  aroused  and  I  went 
to  have  a  look  at  it.  I  found  the  prehistoric  relic  on  a 
hilltop  in  the  midst  of  a  large  wheat-field.  Three  great 
slabs  of  stone  are  set  up  on  edge,  and  another  block, 
still  larger,  is  hoisted  on  top  so  that  together  they  form 
a  sort  of  box  with  one  side  gone.  As  a  "  house  "  I  did 
not  think  much  of  it,  though  it  was  undoubtedly  sub- 


240 


Among  English   Hedgerows 


stantial ;  but  when  one  reflected  on  its  great  age  and 
its  possible  connection  with  the  mysterious  Druids,  it 
was  quite  impressive.     To  keep  the  public  from  carry- 


Kit's  Coty  House 

ing  it  off  a  high  iron  fence  surrounds  it  —  not  that 
there  is  any  danger  of  its  being  appropriated  just  as 
it  is,  in  a  lump,  at  one  time;  but  in  the  course  of 
years,  if  allowed,  the  relic  hunters  would  carry  away 
every  splinter  of  it  piecemeal. 

In  a  field  a  quarter  of  a  mile  down  the  hill  is  another 
ancient  group  of  stones.  Some  are  large  and  some  are 
small  and  they  lie  in  a  tumbled  heap  half  hidden  by  a 
rank  growth  of  nettles,  briers,  and  grasses  under  sev- 


In  Kent  and  Sussex  241 

eral  young  oaks.  They  are  called  "  The  Countless 
Stones,"  because  it  is  said  that  you  can  never  count 
them  twice  in  succession  and  get  the  same  number. 
I  had  an  idea  before  I  saw  the  stones  that  there  was 
a  great  number  of  them  set  up  in  a  big  field  like 
headstones  in  a  cemetery,  and  the  real  thing  was  so 
unlike  what  I  expected  that  I  came  near  not  noticing 
it.  I  saw  no  reason  for  there  being  any  difficulty  in 
counting  the  rocks;  for  at  first  sight  the  heap  of  bowl- 
ders did  not  look  as  if  it  could  possibly  number  more 
than  a  dozen.  But  when  I  tried  the  counting  and 
looked  more  closely,  I  found  there  were  smaller  stones 
half  hidden,  and  that  the  whole  made  a  very  twisted 
mass.  I  got  up  to  over  twenty,  and  then  I  became 
uncertain  as  to  whether  I  had  counted  them  all  or 
counted  some  twice  and  I  gave  it  up.  Some  one  had 
numbered  the  stones  with  chalk,  but  the  numbers 
skipped  about  in  as  uncertain  a  way  as  the  stones 
themselves  and  I  found  they  did  not  assist  me  any. 
Still,  numbering  would  seem  to  be  a  very  good 
method  to  make  sure  of  them  if  one  would  exercise 
patience. 

When  I  left  Aylesford,  I  took  a  train  that  carried 
me  southward  into  Sussex.  On  the  way  I  divided  my 
attention  between  the  beautiful  views  from  the  car  win- 
dow and  the  conversation  of  a  party  of  laboring  folk, 
who  got  in  at  one  of  the  way  stations  and  continued 


242  Among  English  Hedgerows 

for  some  time  in  my  apartment.  One  of  these  fellow- 
passengers  was  a  very  sociable  old  man,  whom  the 
others  addressed  as  Mr.  Needles.  He  said  he  had 
just  taken  a  glass  of  beer,  and  declared  it  made  him 
"  silly  as  a  ship  (sheep).  I  ain't  used  to  it,  ye  know ; 
hain't  drunk  beer  before  for  seventeen  years,  and  I 
could  do  without  it  for  seventeen  years  more.      But  I 


Reaping  barley 


been  to  see  the  doctor  lately,  and  he  ordered  it.     One 
glass'll  make  me  drunk  for  three  days." 

Mr.  Needles  plainly  felt  very  happy,  and  the  beer 


In  Kent  and  Sussex  243 

seemed  to  have  the  further  effect  of  creating  a  desire 
to  expand  his  views  on  religion.  He  accepted  the 
Bible  literally,  —  that  is,  as  it  was  interpreted  at  his 
chapel,  —  with  certain  additional  points  that  he  had 
thought  out  himself.  The  subject  started  with  his 
saying  that  he  and  his  "  Missus  "  never  ate  any  meat. 
They  confined  their  diet  to  bread  and  butter  and  bread 
and  cheese  —  "best  food  in  the  world."  He  had 
known  a  man  once  who  ate  bread  and  butter  one  week 
and  bread  and  cheese  the  next  week  right  through  the 
year,  and  he  was  "  fat  as  a  pig."  Even  that  much 
wasn't  really  necessary,  Mr.  Needles  declared ;  and  he 
believed  you  could  get  along  without  eating  altogether. 
He  said  you  could  live  on  faith,  but  he  qualified  this 
statement,  on  reflection,  by  adding,  "  and  a  very  little 
besides."  The  Bible  said  as  much,  "and  didn't  the 
Lord  say,  'Come  unto  me,  and  I  will  give  you  life'?" 
and  so  he  went  on  with  a  long  and  serious  discourse 
to  prove  that  one  could  live  on  faith,  "  and  a  very 
little  besides." 

In  Sussex  many  windmills  crowned  the  hilltops,  and 
their  odd  shape  and  their  wide-reaching,  slow-swing- 
ing arms  gave  the  landscape  an  aspect  peculiarly  inter- 
esting. As  seen  from  a  distance,  the  mills  never 
appeared  very  large ;  and  when,  one  day,  I  visited 
one,  its  great  size  was  a  revelation.  It  loomed  up,  as 
viewed  close  at  hand,  like  a  heavy-based  church  spire. 


244 


Among  English  Hedgerows 


A  Sussex  Windmill 


Sixty  feet  was  its  height,  or,  if  you  measured  from  the 
ground  to  the  top  of  the  sweeps,  the  distance  was 
eighty-two    feet.     There  was    a   good    deal   of  room 


In  Kent  and  Sussex  245 

inside  the  structure,  too,  though  in  this  particular  in- 
stance it  was  crowded  full  of  machinery  and  bins  and 
sacks  of  grain,  so  that  elbow  room  was  noticeably  lack- 
ing. Attached  to  the  base  of  the  mill  were  several 
buildings  used  for  storage,  but  there  was  no  house 
connected,  as  is  the  case  with  some  of  the  mills.  In 
busy  times,  when  the  wind  blows,  the  miller  said  they 
kept  grinding  day  and  night. 

Aside  from  the  windmills,  the  feature  of  Sussex  that 
attracted  my  attention  most  was  a  vast  series  of  moun- 
tain-like hills,  their  great,  rounded  forms  perfectly  de- 
void of  any  larger  vegetation  than  grass  and  low  shrubs. 
These  big,  bare,  grazing  "  downs,"  as  they  are  called, 
were  especially  strange  to  American  eyes  used  to  seeing 
all  the  hilltops  wooded.  I  wondered  that  the  sun  did 
not  parch  their  unprotected  heights  into  deserts.  No 
doubt  it  would  in  a  climate  less  cool  and  moist. 


XVIII 

ROUND    ABOUT    STONEHENGE 

THE  railway  station  that  is  nearest  to  Stone- 
henge  is  at  Salisbury.  Stonehenge  itself  is 
ten  miles  distant  on  "  The  Plains."  The 
village  of  Amesbury  is  quite  close  to  the  famous  group 
of  stones,  but  as  there  is  neither  railway  nor  any  other 
public  conveyance  thither,  the  sight-seeing  traveller, 
unless  he  is  an  uncommonly  good  walker,  has  to  hire 
a  carriage.  I  made  the  trip  in  a  dogcart,  at  a  cost 
of  ten  shillings.  My  driver  kept  his  horse  in  a  hump- 
ing and  uncomfortable  gallop  much  of  the  way,  except 
when  we  came  to  down-hill  stretches.  Then  he  let  the 
horse  walk.  That  is  a  way  that  English  drivers  have. 
Where  an  American  would  go  fastest,  they  go  slowest. 
Soon  after  we  left  Salisbury  town  we  passed  a  big  hill 
fortified  with  great  grass-grown  rings  of  Roman  earth- 
works, and  then  we  entered  Salisbury  Plains.  Of 
course  everybody  knows  that  these  plains  are  great 
barren  levels  with  hardly  a  tree  to  be  sighted  within 
the  whole   horizon.      At   any   rate   that  was   what   I 

246 


Round  about  Stonehenge 


247 


thought  /  knew,  but  they  are  nothing  of  the  sort. 
The  district  is  one  of  big,  long-swelling  hills,  and  is 
full  of  cultivated  fields.  Tree  clumps  are  frequent, 
and  in  the  wet  valleys  the  groves  are  quite  extended 


A  Village  Scene 

and  luxuriant.  But  as  a  whole  the  country  is  less  fer- 
tile than  most  sections,  and  you  find  more  grazing 
downs,  less  frequent  farms  and  villages,  and,  except 
about  buildings,  no  hedges.  It  makes  an  odd  change 
from  the   rest  of  England  to  find  one's  self  travel- 


248  Among  English  Hedgerows* 

ling  along  on  a  level  with  the  fields  and  In  no  way 
separated  from  them.  In  time  we  reached  Amesbury, 
and  my  driver  left  me  at  a  hotel.  When  I  paid  him 
he  had  fears  a  tip  was  not  forthcoming  and,  after  the 
manner  of  the  English  driver,  begged  for  a  few  cop- 
pers "  to  get  a  glass  of  beer  with." 

It  was  already  mid-afternoon  and  the  sky  was  threat- 
ening, but  as  soon  as  I  had  disposed  of  my  luggage  I 
borrowed  an  umbrella  and  started  for  Stonehenge. 
The  distance  was  two  miles  along  a  hilly  road  that  was 
often  overhung  by  fine  trees.  But  when  I  neared  the 
place  I  sought,  the  country  changed  to  open  fields  and 
sheep  downs. 

I  had  not  much  notion  of  what  Stonehenge  would 
look  like,  and  the  first  thing  I  imagined  to  be  it 
proved  to  be  a  distant  group  of  farm  buildings.  As 
soon  as  I  was  aware  of  my  mistake  I  looked  still 
farther  into  the  distance  and  concluded  I  espied  it  on 
a  remote  slope  where  a  scattered  half  mile  of  ever- 
greens gave  an  impression  of  standing  stones.  When 
I  saw  the  real  thing  I  was  disappointed.  As  I  looked 
at  it  across  a  valley  the  group  of  stones  was  about  as 
impressive  as  are  those  in  the  cemetery  of  one  of  our 
small  New  England  villages. 

But  as  I  approached  them  they  kept  growing  larger 
and  larger,  and  at  a  close  view  they  were  most  tremen- 
dous and  astonishing.      Their   gray,  llchened   forms 


Round  about  Stonehenge  249 

were  gathered  in  close  circles  about  a  central,  open 
space  of  short-cropped  turf.  There  were  two  inner 
circles  of  small  stones  about  five  feet  high,  much  like 
stout  fence  posts,  and  two  outer  circles  of  great  pillars 
that  loomed  up  fifteen  or  twenty  feet  and  that  had 
enormous  slabs  laid  on  top  of  them  extending  from 
one  to  another.  The  stones  were  tilted  at  all  angles 
and  many  of  them  had  fallen.  It  seemed  a  wonder 
that  all  were  not  prostrate  when  one  considered  the 
great  length  of  time  that  had  passed  since  they  were 
erected,  but  they  are  given  stability  by  having  their 
bases  embedded  about  five  feet  in  the  chalk  rock  that 
underlies  the  thin  soil.  The  whole  group  is  encircled 
at  a  distance  of  six  or  seven  rods  by  a  low  bank  of 
earth  on  which  there  are  two  more  stones  :  the  one 
to  the  east  called  the  sunrise  stone,  and  the  one  to  the 
west  the  sunset  stone.  Everything  about  the  strange 
stones,  in  their  situation  and  arrangement,  made  it  easy 
to  accept  the  theory  that  long  ago  this  was  a  great, 
rude,  roofless  temple  of  the  Druids ;  and  in  the  imagi- 
nation one  saw  these  ancient  priests  performing  bloody 
and  mystical  rites  among  the  great  pillars  where  now 
the  peaceful  sheep  feed  and  the  inquisitive  tourist  wan- 
ders. Another  contrast  to  the  barbaric  stones  was 
furnished  by  the  flowers  that  brightened  the  turf;  for 
the  grass  all  around  was  gay  with  short-stemmed  but- 
tercups and  daisies,  and  in  places  was  mottled  blue  and 


250  Among  English   Hedgerows 

yellow  with  "  Canterbury  bells  "  and  "  ladies'  thumbs 
and  fingers." 

The  spot  occupied  by  the  stones  is  a  very  lonely  one. 
The  soil  of  the  uplands  about  is  too  lean  to  give  large 
returns,  and  the  only  sign  of  human  habitations  in  sight 
was  a  single  huddle  of  farm  buildings  lying  far  up  the 
slope.  Amesbury  was  hidden  in  a  hollow  two  miles 
away,  and  the  region  conveyed  an  impression  so  for- 
lorn and  deserted  that  it  was  a  surprise  to  find  close 
under  the  great  stones  of  the  temple  a  small,  shiny, 
black-covered  cart  that  looked  like  an  undertaker's 
wagon.  A  white  horse  was  feeding  near  by,  and  last, 
but  not  least,  there  was  a  little  man  with  a  red  nose 
sitting  on  one  of  the  fallen  columns.  At  first  I  imag- 
ined he  might  be  one  of  the  Druids,  though  his  over- 
coat and  derby  hat  looked  rather  too  modern  ;  but  he 
told  me  he  sold  photographs,  and  sure  enough,  inside 
the  ancient  temple  was  his  stock  in  trade  laid  out  on 
the  stones.  He  said  his  name  was  Mr.  F.  H.  Judd, 
and  explained  that  he  not  only  sold  pictures,  but  he 
would  take  your  likeness  with  Stonehenge  as  a  back- 
ground, or  do  "  anything  else  in  a  professional  way." 
He  had  been  working  in  this  line  of  business  at  Stone- 
henge now  for  twenty  years.  This  had  given  him  time 
to  get  the  history  of  the  place  by  heart. 

■Some  of  the  interesting  things  that  he  told  me,  and 
that  I  suppose  he  tells  all  other  visitors  to  the  place. 


Round  about  Stonehenge  251 

were  these :  No  one  knows  where  the  great  stones 
that  make  up  the  temple  came  from.  There  is  no  rock 
of  the  same  kind  to  be  found  anywhere  in  the  regions 
near,  and  it  is  a  mystery  how  the  Druids,  with  the 
rude  appHances  of  their  time,  could  possibly  have  con- 
veyed the  stones  the  great  distances  they  must  have 
been  brought,  or  how  raised  them  into  place  and 
hoisted  the  immense  blocks  on  top.  Some  of  the 
stones  are  missing,  but  no  trace  of  their  whereabouts 
has  been  found.  The  two  last  stones  to  tumble  fell 
scarcely  one  hundred  years  ago.  Sorne  gypsies  had 
camped  on  the  spot  and  undermined  them  in  digging 
holes  for  their  fires.  Two  others  fell  in  1620.  There 
has  been  talk  of  setting  the  fallen  stones  up,  but  it  has 
never  amounted  to  anything.  One  American  told  Mr. 
Judd  that  he  would  give  a  million  dollars  for  this  lot 
of  stones  if  he  could  get  the  privilege  of  removing 
them.  He  would  set  them  up  on  American  soil  in  or 
near  some  large  city,  build  a  fence  around  them,  charge 
admission,  and  advertise  it  as  the  eighth  wonder  of  the 
world.  This  speculator  from  across  the  seas  told  the 
Stonehenge  photographer  that  he  thought  it  would 
make  a  grand  good  show. 

The  afternoon  sun  was  getting  low,  and  presently 
Mr.  F.  H.  Judd  gathered  up  his  belongings,  caught 
his  horse,  hitched  it  to  his  cart,  and  bade  me  "  Good 
evening."     Big  showery  clouds  were  continually  rolling 


252 


Among  English  Hedgerows 


up  and  darkening  the  sky,  and  there  were  scraps  of 
rainbow  frequently  forming  and  fading  along  the  far 
horizon.  This  shifting  gloom  and  light  of  the  skies, 
added  to  the  loneliness  of  the  great  plains,  made  a 
wild  and  mysterious  background,  very  much  in  keep- 
ing with  the  rude,  strange  group  of  stones  of  the 
venerable  temple.  As  I  saw  it  that  afternoon,  the 
place  had  a  magic  spell  that  kept  me  loitering  in  the 


Stonehenge 

vicinity   till   darkness,  with   threats  of  a  rainy   night, 
drove  me  back  to  the  town. 

On  the  following  day  I  took  a  look  around  Ames- 
bury  village.     It  lies  in  a  wide  valley  through  which 


Round  about  Stonehenge  25J 

runs  a  charming  little  river  called  the  "  Avon."  The 
lowlands  that  border  the  stream  are  very  fertile,  and 
everywhere  are  numbers  of  great,  full  branching  elms. 

The  narrow  Amesbury  streets  and  lanes  contain  an 
uncommonly  large  proportion  of  quaint  old  houses 
with  roofs  of  thatch  and  tile.  On  one  of  the  lanes  I 
came  on  some  men  unloading  fagots  before  the  doors 
of  the  cottages.  A  group  of  old  women  was  looking 
on.  They  were  haggling  with  the  men  and  trying  to 
induce  them  to  give  them  fagots  with  larger  sticks  in 
them.  After  the  men  and  their  wagon  had  gone  on, 
the  old  women  would  go  over  the  different  piles  left 
them  and  their  neighbors  and  exclaim  over  the  great 
sticks  some  one  else  had  got,  and  theirs  so  very  small ! 

These  fagots  had  each  about  one  good-sized  stick 
of  cord  wood  in  them  and  the  rest  of  the  bundle  was 
brush.  The  bundles  were  bound  with  withes,  and 
were  about  as  large  as  a  man  could  pick  up  in  his 
arms  and  handle  comfortably. 

A  question  I  asked  one  of  the  old  women  about 
the  fagots  led  to  an  acquaintance  that  resulted  in  her 
inviting  me  to  step  into  her  cottage  to  see  a  parrot  of 
which  she  seemed  very  proud.  I  acceded  to  her  re- 
quest and  entered  the  tiny  whitewashed  dwelling  in 
which  the  old  lady  lived  all  alone.  Its  thatched  roof 
was  getting  ragged  and  mossy,  and  the  wooden  thongs 
which  bound  it  were  all  sticking  up  through  the  straw 


254  Among  English  Hedgerows 

with  broken  ends.  She  said  that  the  roof  had  not 
been  touched  for  ten  years.  The  thatch  before  that 
staid  on  twenty  years,  and  "  leaked  that  bad,  she  Hked 
to  'a'  been  washed  away  before  she  could  get  it  done 
over.  Ah !  these  landlords  like  to  see  the  money 
coomin'  in,  but  it  is  another  matter  when  it  cooms  to 
payin'  anything  out." 

The  living  room,  which,  though  small,  took  up 
nearly  all  the  ground  floor,  was  paved  irregularly  with 
flagging,  and  the  walls  were  almost  hidden  by  quanti- 
ties of  earthenware  and  knickknacks. 

She  said  of  these  :  "  My  'usband  were  terrible  for  all 
this  trafiic.  The  peddler'd  coom  'long,  and  my  'usband 
he'd  say,  '  I'd  like  one  o'  they.' 

"'Beggar  the  things!  I  don't  want  'em,'  I'd  say; 
but  he  would  get  'em  just  the  same." 

There  was  a  great  fireplace  at  one  end  of  the  room 
with  a  modern  grate  almost  lost  within  it. 

"  There's  that  stove  and  a  hoven,"  she  said  ;  "  I  got 
that  grate  put  in.  It'll  'ave  to  bide  when  I  leave  ;  but 
when  I  go,  if  the  new  ones  that  cooms  to  live  'ere 
won't  pay  for't,  I'll  smash  it  with  the  'ammer." 

The  old  lady  while  she  talked  with  me  sat  in  a 
big  armchair  by  the  fire.  Near  by  was  a  little  round 
table  at  which  it  was  her  habit  to  eat.  At  her  elbow, 
too,  was  the  parrot,  to  whom  she  addressed  frequent 
remarks,  and  of  whom  she  had  much  to  tell. 


Round  about  Stonehenge  255 

"  My  son  in  London  sent  this  parrot  a  purpose  to 
be  company  for  me,"  she  said.     "  I'm  learnin'  her  to 


A  Cottage  Interior 

talk  what  I  can.  She  calls  a  woman  that  lives  down 
here  *  Alice,'  and  she  tells  the  children,  when  she  sees 
'em,  to  go  to*  school.  *  Go  'cool,  Joe  ! '  she  says. 
*  George,  go  'cool ! '     She  will  laugh,  too. 

"Soon's  ever  I  put  on  my  hold  'at  to  go  hout  in  the 
garden,  *  Good-by,'  she  says. 


256  Among  English  Hedgerows 

"  Won't  she  watch  when  I  'ave  dinner  !  Sometimes 
I  turns  my  back,  like  this,  to  eat  an  apple,  *  What's 
'e  got  ? '  she  says.  I  can't  get  her  to  say,  *  Good 
night,'  or  '  Good  morning.' 

"  She  flings  every  one  of  her  victuals  out  when  she's 
cross.  I  say  to  her,  *  Is  your  nut  gone,  Polly  ? '  and 
she  says,  *  Polly  crack  her  nut,  Polly  crack  her  nut ! ' 
I  covers  her  up  at  night,  they  be  such  chilly  birds." 

By  and  by  the  old  lady  rose  and  went  to  a  closet-like 
little  back  room.  She  returned  with  a  bottle  and  asked 
me  if  I  wouldn't  "  take  a  drop." 

"  You  ain't  a  teetot'ler,  be  ye  ?  "  she  asked  when  I 
refused. 

I  said,  "  Yes,"  but  she  seemed  to  doubt  it  and  she 
held  the  bottle  at  a  tempting  tilt  over  a  mug  while 
she  asked  me  again  to  have  a  drop. 

"  Well,"  she  said,  "  I'll  'ave  some  myself  then. 
I'm  no  teetot'ler;  neither  do  I  get  drunk,  thank  God ! 

"I  know  these  teetot'lers,"  she  continued;  "they 
has  their  wines  and  rum  and  whiskies  and  things  when 
they's  sick." 

My  hostess  said  she  was  close  to  eighty  years  old. 
She  had  worked  till  she  was  seventy-eight  and  then 
she  came  on  the  parish.  Now  she  was  allowed 
eighteen  pence  and  a  gallon  of  bread  each  week.  A 
gallon  of  bread  is  eight  pounds.  It  was  delivered  in 
two  instalments,  and  the  old  lady  had  to  go  after  it 


Round  about  Stonehenge 


257 


each  Thursday  and  Saturday.  She  said  the  bread  was 
made  by  the  baker  who  would  contract  to  do  it  cheap- 
est, but  it  was  very  good  bread. 

Eighteen  pence  would  hardly  keep  her  in  coal  in 
the  winter,  and  there  was  the  rent,  thirty-five  shillings, 
that  had  to  be  paid  every  year  the  first  Monday  in 
November.  "  If  we  don't  pay  it  right  up  prompt," 
she  said,  "  we  soon  has  somebody  round  after  us." 

Her  cottage  was  very  small  or  the  rental  would  have 
been  more.  Yet  few  laborers  pay  over  one  shilling 
and  ninepence  or  two  shillings  a  week  for  their  cot- 


The  Allotments 


258  Among  English  Hedgerows 

tages.  Rentals  nearly  always  include  a  plot  of  garden 
ground ;  and,  on  the  village  outskirts,  is  a  piece  of 
land  called  "The  Allotments"  where  the  laborers  have 
the  privilege  of  hiring  a  few  rods  of  land  if  they 
choose.  In  the  patchwork  of  the  allotments  the  men 
are  often  working  in  their  spare  hours  in  the  evening, 
and  the  women  are  frequently  seen  there  wrestling  with 
the  weeds  in  the  daytime. 

My  hostess  in  continuing  her  story  said :  "  1  had  a 
son  in  Australia  and  he  always  said  he'd  keep  a  house 
over  my  head  as  long  as  I  lived.  He  sent  me  money 
right  along.  Then  he  died  and  his  wife  died.  They 
had  eight  children.  The  oldest  one  was  a  girl  at  ser- 
vice, about  twenty-five  years  old.  She  sends  me  a 
trifle  occasionally,  but  if  she  was  to  get  married  per- 
haps she  couldn't  send  me  anything  any  more. 
Thank  God  a'mighty  she's  got  a  good  heart." 

The  rough  kitchen  ceiling  came  down  very  low,  and 
the  apartment  was  only  suited  to  short  people.  The 
old  lady  said  she  used  to  have  a  lodger.  "  He  was  a 
boy  when  he  coom  here,"  said  she,  "  not  more'n  that 
high,"  putting  her  hand  about  three  feet  and  a  half 
from  the  floor  ;  "  but  he  grew  and  kep'  a  growin'  till 
he  couldn't  stan'  anywhere,  up  straight,  but  right 
atween  the  beams.  Then  he  said  he  thought  he'd 
'ave  to  leave." 

She  told  me  the  workhouse,  of  which  she  would  her- 


Round  about  Stonehenge  259 

self  be  an  inmate  were  it  not  for  her  Australian  grand- 
daughter, was  like  a  jail.  They  had  to  work  hard 
there.  "  The  men  is  put  to  breakin'  stone  and  pickin' 
yoakum — leastwise,  those  that  bide  there  a  night  is. 
Then  there's  a  great  garden  and  the  men  goes  out  and 
does  the  garden.  There's  a  bell  to  ring  'em  up  in  the 
mornin',  and  a  bell  to  ring  'em  out,  and  a  bell  to  ring 
'em  in,  and  a  bell  to  ring  'em  to  bed." 

This  routine  seemed  to  my  hostess  a  great  trial  and 
she  looked  forward  with  dismal  foreboding  to  the 
time  when  she  could  not  pay  her  rent  and  would  have 
to  become  a  part  of  the  workhouse  machine.  It  is 
not  to  be  inferred,  however,  from  her  sombre  anticipa- 
tions that  life  at  the  workhouse  was  needlessly  hard 
and  tyrannical. 

The  old-time  English  workhouse  that  exists  as  a  sort 
of  nightmare  in  the  novels  of  a  half  century  ago  has 
ceased  to  be.  The  building  is  usually  modern  and  sub- 
stantial and  neat,  and  the  inmates  are  kindly  treated  and 
kept  in  comfort  so  far  as  I  could  learn.  Yet  their  free- 
dom is  curtailed,  and  they  have  lost  the  surroundings 
and  companions  that  have  made  home  dear  to  them. 
It  is  the  custom  to  assist  the  worthy  poor  who  can 
partially  support  themselves,  as  in  the  case  of  this  old 
woman,  with  outside  help. 

I  went  with  her  presently  to  her  little  garden  back 
of  the  house  on  which  she  mainly  depended  for  the 


26o  Among  English  Hedgerows 

income  that  paid  her  rent,  and  when  we  finished  the 
tour  of  that  I  returned  to  my  hotel. 

That  afternoon  "John  Jenning's  World  Renowned 
Steam  Galloping  Horses  "  came  to  town.  John  Jen- 
ning's big  wagons  with  their  high  colors  and  showy 
lettering  had  the  look  of  a  small  circus  caravan,  and 
in  the  early  evening  I  went  down  to  the  green  and 
saw  they  had  set  up  a  steam  roundabout  there.  The 
whistle  of  the  engine  was  tooting  shrilly  to  arouse  the 
community  and  bring  out  the  lovers  of  pleasure,  and 
a  crowd,  mostly  of  young  people,  was  already  gather- 
ing. Some  looked  over  the  hedge  from  the  roadway, 
some  gathered  in  a  group  at  the  gate,  but  the  larger 
part  were  on  the  green  hovering  around  the  hobby- 
horses. There  were  about  three  dozen  of  these  little 
painted  ponies  under  the  round  canopy,  and  every  one 
had  its  mouth  open  and  lips  drawn  back  in  a  manner 
meant  to  be  high-spirited  but  which  looked  decidedly 
vicious. 

The  horses  were  arranged  in  a  triple  circle  within 
which  were  the  steam-engine  and  some  revolving  mir- 
rors and  five  dummy  figures  with  movable  arms.  The 
two  largest  dummies,  which  were  nearly  life  size,  had 
drums  hung  from  their  shoulders  which  they  were 
pounding  in  their  stiff-elbowed  way.  One  of  the 
smaller  figures  was  beating  time,  and  the  other  two 
manikins  were  jerking  and  rattling  triangles,  cymbals, 


Round  about  Stonehenge  261 

and  such  things  at  a  great  rate.  A  steam-organ  kept 
playing  all  the  time  so  that,  all  in  all,  the  roundabout 
had  an  air  of  enticing  abandonment  not  easy  to  resist. 

Other  attractions,  set  up  near  by,  were  three  swings, 
a  cocoanut  court,  and  "  The  Alexandria  Shooting  Gal- 
lery." At  the  rear  of  the  roundabout  were  three 
wagons  fitted  up  for  the  troupe  to  live  in.  One  of 
the  wagons  was  the  home  of  a  baby.  Its  father 
brought  the  little  thing  out  in  the  early  dusk  and 
gave  it  a  ride  on  one  of  the  galloping  hobby-horses. 
That  made  it  laugh  and  clap  its  hands. 

By  the  time  the  show  was  well  under  way  the  sun 
was  setting  in  the  west.  It  fired  the  clouds,  and  their 
flames  streamed  high  up  into  the  sky.  Then  their 
fires  cooled  down  gradually  into  faint  low-lying  embers, 
and  some  of  the  attendants  of  Jenning's  World  Re- 
nowned lit  a  lot  of  flaring  kerosene  torches,  and  the 
revels  on  the  green  continued  far  into  the  night. 


XIX 


LIFE    AT    AN    INN 


THE  ordinary  English  inn  is  something  half- 
way between  a  hotel  and  a  saloon.  Only  an 
occasional  one  will  take  roomers  ;  yet  while 
the  main  business  is  confined  to  selling  liquors,  an 
important  item  of  trade  consists  in  serving  the  travel- 
ling public  with  light  lunches.  Many  hostelries  do 
better  still  and  will  set  forth  an  elaborate  dinner  when 
it  is  called  for.  But  above  all  else  the  inn  as  an  insti- 
tution is  notable  for  the  unanimity  with  which  its  bar 
and  taproom  draw  to  themselves  the  local  population. 
The  inn  is  the  villagers'  chief  public  meeting-place, 
the  centre  of  the  community  socially,  and  as  such  pos- 
sesses special  interest. 

I  wanted  to  see  country  life  from  this  vantage  point, 
and  it  was  with  considerable  satisfaction  that  I  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  lodging  at  an  inn  known  as  "  The 
Gray  Goose,"  in  a  village  of  southern  England  named 
Hazelford.  Here  I  made  two  short  stays  of  a  few 
days  each,  between  which  there  was  an  interval  of 
about  a  fortnight. 

262 


Life  at  an  Inn  26^ 

The  Gray  Goose  was  kept  by  a  Mr.  Rickalls.  He 
was  a  man  of  middle  age  who,  until  within  a  short 
time,  had  been  a  shoemaker.  He  was  a  good  work- 
man, and  had  been  doing  well  at  his  trade,  but  shoe- 
making  was  neither  so  profitable  nor  so  gentlemanly  a 
business  as  keeping  a  "  public."  The  ex-shoemaker's 
family  was  pleasant  and  intelligent,  A  daughter  was  a 
school-teacher.  She  waited  on  the  bar  after  school 
hours.  Mrs.  Rickalls,  too,  was  often  in  the  bar  serv- 
ing the  drinkers.  A  barrel  of  beer  and  quantities  of 
other  liquors  were  sold  at  the  inn  every  day,  yet  the 
village  was  a  very  quiet  little  hamlet  of  hardly  a  dozen 
houses,  with  a  pleasant  farming  country  round  about 
of  green  fields  and  hedgerows  and  scattered  dwellings. 

The  view  that  one  gets  of  mankind  about  an  English 
inn  is  not  a  cheerful  one.  Drinking,  smoking,  spitting, 
and  low-minded  talk  are  omnipresent,  and  the  rooms  the 
men  gathered  in  evenings  at  the  Gray  Goose  grew  so 
filthy  with  the  day's  accumulation  of  stale  tobacco,  saliva, 
and  beer-spillings  that  a  vigorous  scrubbing  out  each 
morning  with  soap  and  water  was  absolutely  necessary. 
This  daily  cleansing  made  the  apartments  presentable, 
but  it  could  not  take  away  their  rank,  ingrained  odor 
which,  to  some  extent,  permeated  the  whole  house. 

The  inn,  before  the  shoemaker  took  it,  was  kept  by 
a  woman  who  was  a  drunkard.  It  was  her  drinking 
that  sent  her  husband  to  his  grave,  and  it  was  this 


264 


Among  English  Hedgerows 


kept   the   house   slovenly   from   top   to    bottom,   and 
drove  away  customers  to  other  places. 

In  her  last  months  of  occupancy  an  ex-policeman 
was  put  in  charge  of  the  inn.  He  often  found  the 
woman   drunk   on    the   floor  of  the   back   room,  and 


A  Country  Inn 

when  she  became  raving,  he  would  tie  her  to  a  beer 
barrel  in  the  cellar  that  he  might  wait  on  her  cus- 
tomers. With  the  sound  of  her  cursing  and  shriek- 
ing in  their  ears,  the  village  people  had  to  do  their 
drinking.  They  thought  this  a  hardship,  but  they 
found  no  lesson  in  it. 


Life  at  an  Inn  265 

There  was  hardly  a  man  about  Hazelford,  rich  or 
poor,  but  that  drank.  Nor  was  it  easy  to  find  an  ex- 
ception among  the  women.  Even  the  laborer,  with  a 
large  family  and  a  wage  of  ten  shillings  a  week,  who 
tasted  meat  but  one  day  in  seven,  must  have  his  drink 
and  so  must  his  wife. 

A  man  is  drawn  to  the  inn  as  much  for  companion- 
ship and  shelter  as  for  any  craving  for  liquor.  He 
might  spend  his  leisure  at  home,  and  work  in  the  gar- 
den, or  sit  by  the  kitchen  fire.  But  he  tires  of  work; 
and  the  crowded  kitchen,  with  washing  perhaps  hung 
drying  about  the  fireplace,  and  the  squalling  children 
who  are  likely  to  be  present,  is  not  an  attractive  place 
for  the  man.     So  he  resorts  to  the  inn. 

It  is  a  common  thing,  on  almost  any  occasion  where 
friends  meet,  for  one  to  say  to  the  other,  "  Come,  Jack, 
let's  'ave  a  pint."  Then  they  go  to  the  bar,  and  Bill 
asks  for  a  "  pint  of  fours  "  or  a  "  pint  of  fives  "  for  each. 
If  he  is  "  a  gwell  chap,"  he  may  call  for  a  "  pint  of 
sixes,"  that  is,  for  beer  that  costs  sixpence  a  quart. 

A  laborer,  who  spends  an  evening  at  an  inn,  is  seldom 
content  with  a  single  pint.  In  fact,  he  feels  bound  to 
drink  more  than  that,  lest  the  landlord  shall  think  his 
custom  is  not  worth  his  room.  Some  men  make  way 
with  seven  or  eight  pints  in  an  evening.  Frequently 
they  spend  all  that  is  left  of  their  Saturday's  wages 
early  in  the  week,  and  toward  its  close  have  to  go  dry 


266  Among  English  Hedgerows 

—  and  hungry,  too  —  as  like  as  not.  Under  such  cir- 
cumstances they  live  on  credit,  which  is  not  very  great 
in  many  cases. 

The  last  of  the  drinkers,  who  nightly  resorted  to  the 
bar-room  of  the  Gray  Goose  inn,  left  at  ten  o'clock,  and 
then  the  landlord  and  his  wife  counted  their  cash,  locked 
up,  and  went  to  bed.  It  is  the  law  that  country  inns 
must  close  at  ten,  and  this  law  is  strictly  enforced.  A 
few  minutes  before  that  hour  the  landlord  goes  about 
among  such  of  his  patrons,  as  still  loiter,  and  makes 
them  hurry  to  drink  whatever  is  left  in  their  cups. 
On  Sundays  the  bar  is  open  from  twelve-thirty  to 
half  past  two,  and  from  six  to  ten  in  the  evening. 

There  was  one  other  lodger  at  the  Gray  Goose  at 
the  time  of  my  first  visit.  I  ate  my  meals  with  him  in 
the  stuffy  little  parlor.  He  was  a  middle-aged  man 
named  Starkey,  who  in  our  conversation  was  always 
exceedingly  complimentary  to  the  ways  and  ideas  of 
America.  Yet  I  always  had  doubts  of  the  sincerity  of 
this  adulation,  and  our  relations  did  not  develop  much 
warmth.  Mr.  Starkey  dressed  well  and,  except  for  a 
broken  nose,  was  not  bad  looking.  It  was  understood 
that  in  his  younger  days  he  had  been  more  or  less  wild 
and  bad,  and  this  had  led  to  a  quarrel  with  his  wife  and 
a  separation.  But  two  years  ago  his  wife  had  died, 
leaving  him  six  thousand  pounds,  and  the  possession 
of  this  money  had  sobered  the  man. 


Life  at  an  Inn  269 

Mr.  Starkey  was  always  accompanied  in  his  goings 
and  comings  by  a  small  yellow  dog  that  was  very  dis- 
mal and  scrawny.  Mr.  Starkey,  however,  affirmed 
that  this  creature  was  of  an  uncommonly  valuable 
breed,  and  that  such  dogs  often  sold  for  seventy  or 
eighty  pounds. 

The  night  before  I  left  Hazelford  I  went  out  for 
an  evening  ramble  and  was  late  in  getting  back.  The 
inn  door  was  locked,  though  there  was  still  a  light  in  a 
back  room,  and  I  had  to  rap  and  rap  to  get  it  opened 
to  me.  No  one  knew  that  I  was  out,  and  the  inn- 
keeper inquired  very  suspiciously  who  was  there  before 
he  ventured  to  turn  the  key. 

When  I  went  upstairs,  Mr.  Rickalls  followed  me  to 
my  room  with  a  lighted  candle.  He  wanted  to  say 
something  about  the  other  lodger,  Mr.  Starkey. 

"  I  don't  know  what  to  make  of  he,"  said  my  land- 
lord ;  and  he  told  me  he  had  learned  that  Starkey 
was  not  the  well-to-do  gentleman  he  had  represented 
himself  to  be,  but  was  "  one  of  the  biggest  blacks  in 
England."  He  had  supposed  that  he  had  a  lot  of 
property,  but  had  now  found  out  he  hadn't  anything. 

Starkey  had  been  stopping  there  at  Hazelford  with 
a  Mr.  Copps  for  some  time  before  he  came  to  the 
inn  to  board,  and  he  had  borrowed  money  from  this 
Copps.  To  make  Copps  safe,  he  drew  up  a  will  and 
left  all  his  property  to  him.     This  was  very  satisfac- 


270  Among  English   Hedgerows 

tory  to  Copps  until   he  found   that   Starkey  did  not 
own  the  property   he  had  willed  to  him. 

Starkey  had  been  arrested  lately  in  London  for  some 
rascality,  and  was  only  out  of  jail  on  bail.     One  curious 


A  Village  Lane 

thing,  for  a  man  of  his  supposed  dark  character,  was 
that  all  the  time  he  had  stopped  in  Hazelford  he 
would  only  take  "  teetotalers'  drinks,"  that  is,  ginger- 
ale,  soda-water,  and  the  like. 

After  Mr.  Rickalls  had  made  these  shady  revela- 
tions with  regard  to  my  fellow-lodger,  I  would  just  as 
soon  have  been  elsewhere.     I  had  with  me  a  good- 


Life  at  an  Inn  271 

sized  sum  of  money,  and  I  questioned  what  the 
"  biggest  black  in  England "  would  be  likely  to  do 
if  he  suspected  the  fact.  There  was  no  key  to  my 
room  door,  so  1  put  a  chair  against  it  and  left  my 
shoes  in  the  road,  and  then  managed  to  sleep  very 
well   in  spite  of  my  forebodings. 

I  had  made  arrangements  to  leave  the  village  the 
next  day,  and  in  the  early  morning  I  walked  to  the 
nearest  railroad  station.  I  had  supposed  that  Mr. 
Starkey  was  not  yet  out  of  bed,  but  on  the  road  I  met 
him  and  his  ragged  little  dog.  He  shook  hands 
with  me  and  wished  me  good  luck  on  my  journey  with 
the  greatest  cordiality.  No  one  could  have  been 
more  smooth-spoken  or  more  excessively  polite.  Yet, 
underneath  the  outward  polish  was  something  repel- 
lent. 

Two  weeks  later  I  again  visited  Hazelford.  Mr. 
Starkey  was  not  at  the  Gray  Goose  any  more.  He 
had  left  a  few  days  after  I  did,  and  the  circumstances 
of  his  leaving  were  these.  When  Saturday  night  came, 
Mr.  Starkey  having  been  at  the  inn  a  week,  the  land- 
lord brought  in  his  bill.  Mr.  Starkey  found  no  fault 
with  the  amount,  for  he  had  explained  when  he  came 
that  he  did  not  care  what  the  expense  was  if  only  he 
was  made  comfortable.  But  he  said  he  had  no  money 
with  him  just  at  the  moment  and  that  he  would  settle 
the  bill  in  the  morning. 


272  Among  English  Hedgerows 

Morning  came  and  the  money  was  still  lacking. 
Mr.  Rickalls  began  to  get  angry  and  to  insist  on 
having  his  pay,  and  then  Mr.  Starkey  generously 
offered  to  make  the  landlord  safe  by  handing  over 
to  him  a  "  valuable  "  watch  that  he  carried. 

Mr.  Rickalls  took  the  watch,  and  Mr.  Starkey  and 
his  flea-bitten  little  dog  walked  away  to  find  some 
kindlier  quarters. 

The  landlord  carried  the  watch  to  Liston  a  day  or 
two  after  and  had  it  valued.  The  jeweller  said  the 
works  were  worthless,  and,  as  for  the  case,  he  wouldn't 
give  a  sixpence  for  it. 

Another  person  in  whom  I  took  an  interest  while 
I  boarded  at  the  Gray  Goose  was  a  hanger-on  of  the 
place,  named  Sanders.  He  was  a  cross-eyed,  heavy- 
jawed  young  man,  always  surly,  uncomfortable,  and 
muddle-headed  with  drink.  He,  like  Starkey,  had 
had  money  left  him  recently,  only  in  his  case  the 
money  was  fact,  not  fiction.  But  no  one  pretended 
that  this  had  sobered  him,  as  it  was  at  first  believed 
it  had  Starkey.  Sanders  was  an  idler  and  a  spend- 
thrift to  the  backbone. 

When  I  made  my  second  visit  to  Hazelford  I 
stopped  off  at  the  railroad  station  four  miles  distant 
and  walked  out  to  the  village  in  the  dusk  of  early 
evening.  On  the  road  I  was  passed  by  a  cart  with 
three  men  in  it,  all  rather  the  worse  for  drink.     Some- 


Life  at  an  Inn 


273 


thing  about  the  vehicle  was  out  of  order,  for  at  every 
turn  of  the  wheels  a  violent  scraping  sound  was 
heard.  They  drove  as  if  they  were  going  to  destruc- 
tion. One  of  the  three  men  was  Sanders ;  the  others 
I  had  not  seen  before. 


Noon  in  the  Inn  Yard 

The  cart  and  the  men  were  at  the  inn  when  I 
arrived,  and  there  was  loud  talking  and  a  crowd  hang- 
ing about.  It  was  plain  something  unusual  was  going 
on.  Jack  Sanders,  it  seemed,  had  swapped  a  sturdy 
little  white  horse    he  owned  for  a  larger  horse  that 


274  Among  English  Hedgerows 

belonged  to  a  Newstead  man.  The  little  white  horse 
was  "  a  piper,"  that  is,  broken-winded,  but  he  was 
tough  and  steady  and  "  worth  sixteen "  of  the  new 
one.  What  Jack  wanted,  however,  was  a  faster  ani- 
mal, and  he  stoutly  maintained  that  his  new  horse 
was  "  a  racer,"  and  he  slouched  his  cap  over  his  cross- 
eyes  and  walked  about  in  an  even  more  independent 
and  know-it-all  air  than  usual. 

The  landlord  called  the  Newstead  man  "a  rogue," 
and  told  him  he  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  himself  to 
sell  a  horse  like  that  to  a  man  when  he  was  drunk. 

To  show  that  the  horse  was  all  right  the  Newstead 
man  got  on  it  and  cantered  up  and  down  the  road 
and  about  the  yard ;  and  the  temper  of  the  horse 
and  the  operations  of  its  half-drunken  driver  were  so 
uncertain  that  I  thought  it  best  to  get  behind  a  pillar 
of  the  inn  porch. 

When  the  rider  got  off,  one  of  the  horse's  front  legs 
was  all  in  a  quiver.  The  Newstead  man  said  there  was 
a  wart  on  it ;  but  the  crowd  in  its  asides  said  something 
quite  different,  and  I  was  told  that  the  animal  wasn't 
worth  "  a  quid,"  and  that  after  Jack  had  driven  it  about 
twice  he  wouldn't  be  able  to  get  it  into  the  stable.  The 
Newstead  man  blustered  and  treated  the  crowd  at  the 
bar  and  got  the  little  white  horse  hitched  into  its  cart 
and  took  his  things  out  of  the  cart  that  went  with  the 
big  horse,  and  then  he  and  the  other  stranger  drove  off. 


Life  at  an  Inn  275 

Horse  deals  of  this  sort  were  his  chief  business,  and  it 
was  said  that  he  never  owned  a  sound  beast  in  his  life. 

The  new  horse  was  turned  loose  in  the  field  next  the 
inn,  and  Jack  went  in  and  followed  it  around  and  patted 
it  and  brought  it  up  before  the  chaffing  crowd  that  hung 
over  the  fence,  to  show  them  its  good  points.  He 
called  on  the  landlord's  daughter,  the  school-teacher, 
who  stood  in  the  doorway,  to  come  out  and  admire  it, 
but  she  upbraided  him  for  his  fooHshness  instead. 

Jack  stepped  up  to  the  door  to  argue  the  matter, 
when  out  came  the  landlord,  who  said,  "  Your  wife's 
in  the  back  room  here,  now,  crying  her  heart  out  on 
account  of  the  way  you  go  on." 

Jack  found  his  ardor  a  good  deal  dampened  by  this 
talk.  It  made  him  think  he  must  go  home,  and  he 
picked  up  his  overcoat,  threw  it  over  his  arm,  and 
swaggered  off  across  the  street. 

Jack's  father  had  been  one  of  the  best-to-do  farmers 
of  the  neighborhood.  Jack  himself  was  always  a  ne'er- 
do-well,  and  his  dissipations  began  early.  For  a  long 
time  his  father  allowed  Jack  two  pounds  a  week,  which 
lasted  him  till  about  Wednesday,  and  when  the  son  con- 
tracted debts  his  father  paid  them. 

Some  years  ago  Jack  began  to  court  an  inn-keeper's 
daughter  at  Liston,  "  as  nice  a  girl  as  there  was  in  the 
region."  She  knew  what  a  worthless  fellow  Jack  was, 
and  her  folks  were  dead  set  against  the  match,  but  she 


276  Among  English   Hedgerows 

would  have  him.  He  was  not  a  laborer's  son,  he  was 
a  farmer's  son  —  that  was  a  great  merit  in  the  girl's 
eyes.     Unfortunately  it  was  his  only  one. 

But  she  repented  her  marriage  within  a  week  after 
they  left  the  church  where  the  ceremony  was  performed. 
Jack  was  a  hopeless  drunkard,  and  he  often  abused  his 
wife  shamefully.  After  his  father  died  they  and  their 
two  children  had  nothing  to  live  on,  and  his  wife's 
mother  helped  them  enough  to  keep  them  from  suf- 
fering. When  Jack  could  earn  a  little  money  without 
working  hard,  he  would,  and  then,  with  what  he  earned, 
would  get  drunk.  The  previous  February  a  relative 
had  left  him  seven  or  eight  hundred  pounds.  His  wife 
said  they  wouldn't  have  a  penny  of  it  by  the  end  of  a 
twelvemonth. 

The  next  morning  after  the  horse  trade  Jack  had 
sobered  enough  to  feel  that  his  yesterday's  business 
deal  was  not  as  brilliant  as  he  thought  it  at  the  time, 
and  I  saw  him  ride  away  presently  toward  Newstead, 
with  the  intention  of  getting  back  his  little  white  horse. 
Jack's  wife  stood  by  the  street  wall  across  the  way  from 
the  inn  with  her  hand  to  her  head  as  if  in  pain,  and 
watched  him  out  of  sight.  The  night  before  she  had 
talked  to  Jack,  and  he  had  struck  her.  There  were 
black-and-blue  welts  on  her  arms  and  on  her  face. 

One  of  the  villagers  told  me  that  when  it  became 
known  in  a  place  that  a  man  was  in  the  habit  of  beat- 


Life  at  an  Inn 


277 


ing  his  wife,  the  young  fellows  got  together  some  eve- 
ning and  gave  him  a  serenade.  Tin  pans  and  kettles 
were  chief  among  the  instruments  employed.  The 
musicians  first  made  things  lively  about  the  man's 
house,  then  marched  through  the  streets  and  back 
again  to  the  starting-place  for  a  final  flourish.  They 
did  this  serenading  for  three  evenings,  and  by  the  end 
of  that  time  every  man,  woman,  and  child  in  the  com- 


Well 


munity  knew  what  the  trouble  was,  and  the  oflfender, 
it  was  to  be  hoped,  had  repented  and  turned  over  a 


278  Among  English  Hedgerows 

new  leaf.  I  understood,  however,  that  interference  in 
such  cases  was  sometimes  resented  even  by  the  abused 
party.  It  was  related  that  a  certain  villager,  who  heard 
a  great  row  going  on  at  his  opposite  neighbor's,  ran 
across  the  way  and  found  a  man  beating  his  wife.  He 
struck  the  man  and  pulled  him  away  when  the  woman 
began  to  abuse  her  champion  and  demanded,  "  And 
can't  a  man  do  what  he  wants  to  his  own  wife  ?  " 

Jack  Sanders  presently  returned  from  Newstead  with 
his  little  white  horse  and,  after  all,  he  only  lost  twenty- 
five  shillings  by  his  new  trade.  The  people  at  the  inn 
were  very  anxious  to  quiet  him  down  now  and  get  him 
away  for  a  little.  So  was  his  wife.  They  were  all  the 
more  anxious  because  another  horseman  was  hanging 
about  ready  to  fasten  on  to  Jack  and  make  another  sale. 
They  therefore  proposed  to  me  as  a  person  of  leisure 
who  wanted  to  see  the  country  roundabout  that  I 
should  go  for  a  ride  with  Sanders  that  afternoon,  and 
to  him  that  he  should  take  me. 

At  half-past  one  Jack  had  his  cart  at  the  inn  door, 
and  he  and  I  got  in  on  the  front  seat.  His  wife  and 
little  girl  were  to  accompany  us  ;  but  they  were  slow  in 
getting  ready  and  kept  us  waiting.  This  delay  put 
Jack  in  a  great  fret,  and  he  had  to  climb  out  of  the 
cart  and  quiet  his  troubled  spirit  with  a  glass  of  cider. 
By  the  time  he  had  put  the  cider  in  a  safe  place  the 
others  appeared  and  clambered  up   to   the   rear  seat. 


Life  at  an  Inn  279 

I  had  not  had  a  near  view  of  Mrs.  Sanders  before. 
She  was  apparently  of  the  weak-willed  and  sentimental 
sort,  but  otherwise  was  good  enough. 

Mr.  Sanders  smoked  either  a  pipe  or  a  cigar  all 
through  the  drive.  Most  of  the  time  he  kept  up  an 
uneasy  urging  on  of  the  horse,  which  he  commonly 
spoke  of  as  "  Mushroom  King,"  though  he  sometimes 
added  secondary  titles  like  "  Star  of  the  Mist "  and 
"  Child  of  the  Sunrise."  He  stopped  at  every  public 
house  on  the  way  for  drinks ;  he  said  he  never  could 
go  past  a  "  public." 

We  went  seven  miles  to  an  old-fashioned  village  full 
of  thatched  dwellings  where  Jack  had  relatives.  While 
he  visited  them  I  wandered  about  by  myself  An  old 
lady,  weeding  a  flower-bed  in  front  of  her  cottage,  gave 
me  a  friendly  bow,  and  I  ventured  to  stop  for  a  chat. 
She  said  that  the  night  before  she  had  dreamed  of  going 
to  America,  and  she  thought  while  she  dreamed  it  was 
a  great  idea  her  going  way  off  there  at  her  age ;  but  now 
she  saw  what  her  dream  meant  —  she  was  to  have  a  vis- 
itor from  America. 

On  our  way  back  to  Hazelford  we  saw  dozens  and 
dozens  of  rabbits  on  the  edge  of  a  wood  we  passed. 
The  sight  caused  Mr.  Sanders  to  wax  very  excited,  and 
he  swore  some  and  added  more  mildly,  "  God  bless  my 
soul  and  body,  but  I'd  have  some  of  those  fellows  if  I 
had  my  gun  !  " 


28o  Among  English  Hedgerows 

When  we  neared  the  end  of  our  journey  Mr.  Sanders 
remarked  that  this  had  been  one  of  the  most  eventful 
days  of  his  hfe.  He  said  that  he  would  like  to  come 
to  America,  but  I  did  not  encourage  him  in  that  idea. 

I  made  a  friend  of  the  village  schoolmaster  during 
my  stay  at  the  Gray  Goose,  and  in  a  letter  received 
from  him  a  year  later  I  learned  that  Sanders  soon  ran 
through  his  money.  Horse-racing  and  drink  made 
short  work  of  it.  During  the  winter  his  horse  died. 
He  neglected  it  till  it  was  nearly  starved,  and  then  it 
got  down  and  couldn't  get  up  and  had  to  be  shot. 
He  and  his  wife  disagreed  and  would  fight  and  break 
furniture  and  smash  windows.  It  was  said  that  she 
used  the  poker  on  him  one  day.  But  neither  this  nor 
his  poverty  cured  him  of  his  loafing  laziness.  He  was 
getting  along  down  hill  as  fast  as  he  could.  He  perhaps 
would  never  be  behind  prison  bars,  but  if  he  missed  that 
he  could  hardly  fail  to  end  his  days  in  the  workhouse  — 
that  common  bourn  of  the  unfortunate  and  the  shiftless. 

It  may  be  a  question  whether  the  view  I  got  at 
Hazelford  of  inn  life  was  wholly  characteristic.  Some 
of  the  incidents  were  doubtless  unusual,  but  the  busi- 
ness from  its  very  nature  carries  a  blight  with  it,  and 
in  every  village  the  inns  —  because  they  were  the 
centres  of  loafing  and  of  drinking  —  were  also  the  cen- 
tres of  much  of  the  pathos  and  tragedy  of  the  local 
life. 


XX 

COUNTRY    CHURCHES    AND    CHAPELS 

THE  adherents  of  the  Church  of  England  far 
outnumber,  in  the  home  country,  those  of 
any  other  religious  body,  and  theirs  is  the 
dominant  and  typical  sect  in  nearly  every  community. 
In  its  character  and  in  its  setting  the  Church  of 
England  has  many  touches  of  poetry  that  are  absent 
in  the  churches  of  the  New  World.  The  building 
is  of  stone,  and  usually  is  gray  and  ivy-grown  with 
age.  The  massive  walls  have  an  air  of  permanence 
and  the  charm  of  antiquity,  and  the  mind  uncon- 
sciously pictures  the  coming  and  going  of  many  gen- 
erations of  worshippers.  These  sleep  now  in  the 
churchyard  where  the  grass  grows  green  over  the  lowly 
mounds,  and  the  pink-petalled  daisies  and  golden  but- 
tercups brighten  the  turf  each  summer  season. 

Among  the  scattering  stones  of  this  village  of  the 
dead,  gathered  about  the  church  walls,  are  frequent 
evergreen  trees  and  shrubs,  a  dark,  gnarled  yew  with 
a  seat  under  it,  and  horse-chestnut  trees  that  in  spring 

281 


•282  Among  English   Hedgerows 

are  gigantic  bouquets  of  blossoms,  musical  as  a  garden 
of  roses  with  the  hum  of  bees.  The  churchyards  are 
always  tidy  and  attractive,  the  grass  is  mowed  fre- 
quently, and  the  gravel  paths  are  kept  free  from  weeds. 


The  Entrance  to  a  Churchyard 

The  vicarage  adjoins  the  churchyard,  and  through 
the  intervening  shrubbery  you  can  glimpse  its  sub- 
stantial walls  and  tall  chimneys.  Usually  a  vicar  is 
not  entirely  dependent  on  the  salary  of  his  position, 
but  has  some  income  from  bonds  or  other  property 
of  his  own. 

A  vicar,  if  he  is  a  man  of  conscience  and  vigor. 


Country  Churches  and  Chapels  283 

leads  an  active  life.  The  various  services,  christen- 
ings, weddings,  and  funerals  take  time  in  themselves 
and  in  the  preparation  for  them.  Besides,  he  has 
to  give  some  hours  each  week  to  the  village  school, 
his  social  position  compels  a  good  deal  of  visiting, 
and  he,  of  all  others,  is  appealed  to  for  charity.  A 
great  many  of  the  laboring  class  are  on  the  verge  of 
helplessness,  and  the  vicar  has  to  be  constantly  investi- 
gating the  needs  of  such.  It  is  also  held  to  be  his 
duty  to  find  places  for  all  the  girls  who  want  work 
and  to  call  frequently  on  the  sick  and  decrepit.  Many 
clergymen  give  more  than  the  full  amount  of  their 
salary  in  local  charity. 

But  not  all  are  faithful.  There  are  those  who  are 
lazy  or  dissipated  or  tight-fisted.  You  can  hear  in 
English  churches  some  of  the  most  slovenly  services 
imaginable.  This,  of  course,  is  easily  possible  where 
the  clergyman  gets  and  holds  his  position  entirely  inde- 
pendent of  the  likes  or  dislikes  of  his  people.  The 
congregation  has  no  power  to  depose  their  pastor,  even 
if  he  is  known  to  be  incompetent,  or  a  hard  drinker  and 
of  loose  morals,  A  clergyman  of  this  stamp  often 
makes  his  services  surprisingly  like  a  caricature  of 
what  they  really  should  be.  Yet  there  is  always  one 
redeeming  feature,  —  in  the  musical  part  of  the  ser- 
vices there  is  never  absent  a  certain  refinement  and 
charm. 


284  Among  English   Hedgerows 

The  houses  of  worship  of  the  dissenters  are  always 
spoken  of  as  "  chapels."  Dissenters  seem  not  to  pros- 
per outside  the  large  towns,  and  their  chapels  in  country 
places  are  usually  insignificant  and  get  scanty  support. 
The  weakness  of  the  nonconformist  folds,  and  the  sim- 
plicity and  ignorance  of  their  adherents  are  often  piti- 
ful. Their  services  as  I  saw  them  were  in  many  cases 
harsh,  uncultured,  and  not  infrequently  grotesque. 
But,  even  so,  there  was  an  earnestness  about  ,the  dis- 
senting congregations  for  which  I  felt  great  respect. 

I  describe  in  detail  a  few  of  the  services  I  attended 
in  English  churches  and  chapels.  Some  of  them 
are  very  likely  not  fair  samples,  but  I  was  present  at 
many  others  just  as  picturesque  as  any  in  the  list  that 
follows. 

A  sleepy  Sunday  quiet  had  brooded  over  the  vil- 
lage all  the  morning,  broken  only  by  the  tolling  of  the 
church  bell  at  nine  o'clock.     At  half-past  ten 
Church  of   ^j^g  chimcs  began  to  ring,  and  they  continued 

England  .  .  &.  ,        ^        ,  t--         ,  • 

to  rmg  mtermittently  till  eleven.  i^ive  big 
bells  hung  in  the  church  tower,  and  five  ropes  dangled 
down  from  the  bell  loft  to  the  floor  below.  To  ring 
the  chimes,  five  men  took  off  their  Sunday  coats  and 
pulled  away  —  gently  at  first,  then  stronger  and 
stronger,  till  all  the  country  round  echoed  with  the 
madly  tumbling  notes. 


Country  Churches  and  Chapels  285 

With  the  ringing  of  the  chimes,  village  house  doors 
began  to  open,  and  little  groups  of  people  wended  their 
way  churchward.  The  early  comers  visited  with  one 
another  among  the  graves  of  the  churchyard,  or  loitered 
beneath  the  great  yew  and  about  the  entrance.  Within 
the  arch  of  the  stone  porch  were  hung  various  posters 
and  notices.  One  was  a  schedule  of  parish  expenses, 
others  had  to  do  with  her  Majesty's  army,  and  one  was 
a  list  of  relatives  a  person  could  not  lawfully  marry. 
According  to  this  last  a  man  must  not  marry  his  grand- 
mother, or  his  granddaughter,  or  any  one  of  twenty- 
eight  other  female  relatives.  An  equal  number  of 
relatives  was  listed  whom  a  woman  must  not  marry. 

Just  before  the  time  of  service  the  chimes  were  rung 
"in  changes,"  and  the  worshippers  arrived  more  thickly 
and  flocked  into  the  church.  Then  a  drove  of  small 
children  —  the  Sunday-school  —  came  in  a  double  file 
from  the  schoolhouse  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away,  and 
went  to  a  set  of  rising  seats  next  the  organ.  Immedi- 
ately afterward  the  gowned  clergyman,  with  bare  head, 
came  through  a  gate  that  led  from  the  vicarage.  As 
soon  as  he  entered  the  chancel  service  began.  It  was 
a  formal  Episcopal  service,  largely  made  up  of  prayer- 
book  readings  and  responses,  interspersed  with  chant- 
ings  by  the  congregation  and  the  boy  choir ;  and  amid 
all  this  routine  the  short,  theological  sermon  preached 
by  the  vicar  seemed  half  lost. 


286  Among  English   Hedgerows 

At  half-past  twelve  the  service  came  to  an  end,  the 
chimes  were  rung  again,  and  the  congregation  was  dis- 
missed. The  world  without  was  infused  with  the  noon 
warmth  of  the  spring  sunshine,  and  its  contrast  to  the 
chill  that  lingered  among  the  stone  pillars  of  the  shad- 
owy church  interior  made  the  change  to  the  open  air  a 
very  grateful  one. 

The  following  Sunday  morning  I  walked  out  into 
the  country  to  a  church  about  two  miles  distant  from 
the  village  where  I  attended  service  the  week  before. 
The  church  in  this  instance  was  a  lonesome  little  build- 
ing in  the  fields.  The  congregation  came  from  the 
scattered  farmhouses  about  and  numbered  twenty  chil- 
dren and  twelve  grown  persons,  including  the  vicar  and 
a  woman  who  played  the  organ.  The  vicar  was  very 
stout,  and  he  had  a  fat,  vacant  face,  smoothly  shaven, 
and  a  bald  crown,  so  that  in  his  surplice  he  looked  like 
some  ancient  monk.  He  seemed  tired,  and  he  mum- 
bled in  his  reading  and  lisped. 

He  held  his  head  on  one  side,  and,  at  the  mention  of 
the  name  of  Jesus,  and  in  the  more  affecting  portions 
of  his  sermon,  cast  his  eyes  upward  toward  the  ceiling 
and  tried  to  look  beatific.  One  of  the  double  doors  of 
the  porch  was  thrown  back,  and  from  where  I  sat  I 
could  see  out  into  the  sunshine  and  hear  the  birds 
sing.  A  mouse  came  in  from  this  outer  world  through 
a   hole   gnawed   in   the   casing   of  the   door   that  was 


A  Rural  Church 


Country  Churches  and  Chapels  289 

shut.  It  apparently  did  not  realize  that  the  other 
door  was  wide  open,  or  that  anything  unusual  was 
going  on  within.  On  the  mouse  came  making  little 
runs  and  pauses  until  it  reached  the  middle  aisle. 
Then  there  seemed  to  dawn  on  it  the  consciousness 
that  there  were  enemies  about,  and  it  turned  and  scam- 
pered back  to  safety.  The  familiarity  of  this  mouse 
gave  a  very  interesting  touch  of  characterization  to  the 
place,  and  I  could  not  think  of  it  otherwise  than  as  an 
ineffective  and  drowsy  little  church  lost  in  the  fields 
with  nature  close  around  ready  to  take  possession  for 
its  own  purposes  the  moment  man  stepped  out. 

In  one  of  the  villages  where  I  happened  to  be  over 
Sunday  I  attended  the  evening  service  of  a  small 
Baptist    congregation    at   what   was    known 

.  ,  ,,  Baptist 

locally  as  "Harrington's  Chapel."  Its  name 
was  derived  from  the  fact  that  the  meeting  place  was 
provided  by  a  Mr.  Harrington,  a  retired  farmer  of 
independent  property.  It  was  indeed  a  wing  of  his 
house  built  by  him  to  serve  as  a  public  chapel  for  the 
adherents  of  what  he  esteemed  to  be  the  true  faith. 
The  interior  was  simply  a  good-sized  room  set  full  of 
chairs,  with  an  organ,  and  a  desk  covered  with  a  green 
cloth  at  the  farther  end. 

Mr.  Harrington  had  three  sons,  and  they  had  taken 
his   place  in   carrying  on   the  farm.     They  were   all 


290  Among  English  Hedgerows 

sympathetic  supporters  of  the  father's  chapel,  and  the 
oldest  son  was  our  preacher  for  the  evening.  The 
second  oldest  stood  in  the  doorway  and  shook  hands 
with  each  person  who  entered.  The  youngest  sat  at 
the  organ  and  led  the  music.  The  whole  family  were 
emotional,  but  at  the  same  time  were  serious  and 
intelligent. 

There  were  perhaps  twenty-five  persons  present 
when  the  service  began.  In  its  earlier  part  it  was 
largely  singing.  Every  one  enjoyed  the  music,  and 
all  took  part,  and  what  they  lacked  in  harmony  they 
made  up  in  heartiness.  To  give  additional  emphasis 
most  of  the  men  kept  time  by  thumping  the  floor 
with  their  feet. 

The  preacher  was  eloquent  in  a  rude  way,  and  held 
his  hearers'  close  attention.  He  did  not  always  use 
good  English,  but  he  had  plainly  done  a  deal  of  origi- 
nal thinking,  and  his  illustrations  were  numerous  and 
effective.  The  Bible  seemed  to  be  at  his  tongue's 
end,  and  he  was  constantly  referring  to  passages  in  it. 
He  preached  without  notes,  but  there  was  no  faltering, 
and  he  had  so  much  to  say  that  he  appeared  to  find 
it  difficult  to  stop.  Service  began  at  six  o'clock,  and 
it  was  eight  before  it  was  finished. 

I  chanced  to  sit  next  old  Mr.  Harrington  and  his 
wife.  Both  had  Bibles  while  I  had  none,  and  Mr. 
Harrington  kindly  offered  to  let  me  look  over  with 


Country  Churches  and  Chapels  291 

him.  His  Bible  attracted  my  attention  at  once.  The 
book  had  evidently  been  read  and  reread  times  with- 
out number.  Its  edges  were  stained  black  with  much 
handling,  and  every  page  was  full  of  marked  and 
underscored  words  and  sentences. 

That  the  Harringtons  all  felt  strongly  about  religion 
and  were  mutually  agreed  in  their  beliefs  was  very 
plain.  When  the  preacher  made  a  good  point  they 
all  nodded  approval,  and  Mrs.  Harrington  smiled  with 
delight  and  looked  around  to  see  if  her  fellow-hearers 
were  getting  the  full  benefit  of  her  preacher  son's  un- 
answerable arguments. 

There  were  others  of  the  audience  who  were  hardly 
less  appreciative  than  Mrs.  Harrington  When  the 
worldly  got  a  hard  blow,  or  when  some  mistaken  be- 
lief or  shortcoming  of  professing,  yet  hypocritical  or 
mistaken.  Christians  was  denounced,  nods  and  nudges 
were  passed  around,  and  the  hearts  of  the  little  con- 
gregation warmed  in  the  consciousness  that  they  pos- 
sessed the  only  scriptural  and  saving  faith.  The  keen 
thrusts  of  the  preacher  were  perhaps  enjoyed  most  by 
two  old  women  up  on  a  front  seat.  One  of  them  had 
her  head  all  done  up  in  white  bandages,  but  that  did 
not  seem  to  diminish  the  pleasure  she  found  in  the 
sermon,  nor  dampen  the  ardor  with  which  she  and  her 
companion  exchanged  bobbings  of  the  head  and  jabs 
with  the  elbow. 


292  Among  English  Hedgerows 

Among  other  things  the  preacher  told  us  we  must 
not  reason  about  what  the  Bible  says  —  that  would  get 
us  into  trouble.  We  must  accept  it  without  thinking 
about  it.  We  mustn't  take  what  he  said,  or  what  any 
one  else  said,  for  truth  —  go  only  to  the  Bible.  What 
that  said  was  final.  You  mustn't  reason  about  God's 
commands.  They  are  often  contrary  to  reason  and  to 
common  sense.     You  must  obey. 

He  said  with  regard  to  the  Lord's  Prayer  that  it 
was  very  right  and  proper  for  angels  to  use  in  heaven, 
but  it  should  never  be  used  by  faulty  men  on  earth. 
He  himself  would  be  a  double-dyed  hypocrite  to  use 
it.  In  the  first  place  only  Christians  had  the  right  to 
use  the  phrase  "  Our  Father  which  art  in  heaven."  God 
wasn't  a  father  to  any  but  Christians.  In  the  second 
place  not  a  soul  would  get  to  heaven  if  our  trespasses 
were  forgiven  us  as  we  forgive  those  who  trespass 
against  us.  Lastly  we  should  use  no  prayer  in  which 
Christ,  the  Spirit,  and  Holy  Ghost  were  unmentioned. 

The  preacher  affirmed  that  the  Bible  plainly  said 
that  there  was  but  one  baptism,  and  that  immersion. 
He  would  not  say  that  every  one  not  immersed  would 
go  to  hell,  but  he  would  assert  that  "  they  would  only 
get  to  heaven  by  the  skin  of  their  teeth.  Then 
what  does  the  Bible  say  you  must  do  on  the  first  day 
of  the  week  — '  break  bread  together.'  You  say  you 
think  it  is  just  as  well  to  cut  it.     But  what  does  the 


Country  Churches  and  Chapels  293 

Bible  say  ?     It  says,  '  break  it,'  and  I  prefer  to  be  on 
the  safe  side." 

The  views  of  this  Baptist  preacher  seemed  to  me 
rather  peculiar  and  extreme,  yet  as  I  listened  to  the 
sermon  that  evening  I  found  its  earnest  rustic  oratory 
very  interesting  and  its  logic  ingenious  if  not  wholly 
convincing. 

At  half-past  two  one  Sunday  afternoon  I  attended 
service  at  a  Congregational  chapel.  The  chapel  was  a 
plain  little  granite  building  just  across  the 

,     r  ■  ^L        •  •  Congregational 

road  rrom  an  mn.  1  he  mterior  was  very 
small  and  bare.  Along  each  side  were  three  tall,  dia- 
mond-paned  windows.  Another  window,  high  up  at 
the  farther  end  of  the  room,  had  square  panes  of  yel- 
low glass  through  which  I  could  see  a  bit  of  yellowed 
woods  and  sky.  Suspended  in  the  open,  over  the 
pews,  were  five  cheap  lamps.  Two  more  lamps  were 
attached  to  the  little  pulpit  that  stood  just  under  the 
yellow  window.  The  pews  were  of  unpainted  wood, 
much  stained  and  scratched.  None  of  them  had  cush- 
ions. Near  the  pulpit  was  a  "  harmonium,"  an  instru- 
ment we  would  call  a  melodeon. 

There  were  present  an  old  lady,  a  middle-aged  lady, 
a  girl,  three  bovs,  four  spectacled  old  men,  one  of  whom 
was  the  preacher,  and  a  stiff  young  man  who  played  the 
little  harmonium. 


294  Among  English  Hedgerows 

When  service  began,  one  of  the  old  men  tiptoed 
over  to  the  old  lady  and  took  away  her  song  book  and 
gave  it  to  me.  It  was  a  tiny  book  of  hymns,  collected 
by  Mr.  Sankey — words  only.  The  singing  was  not 
very  good,  but  this  was  the  less  apparent  because  the 
harmonium  made  such  an  ear-penetrating  noise. 

The  preacher  had  his  list  of  hymns  on  a  slip  of  paper 
that  was  something  less  than  an  inch  square,  and  he 
found  trouble  in  reading  them  straight.  He  was  a 
seedy-looking  man,  elderly  and  gray  bearded,  yet  with 
dark  hair  that  was  parted  with  great  precision  through 
the  middle.  He  did  not  enter  the  pulpit,  but  read 
and  preached  from  the  floor  in  front  of  it.  When 
he  prayed,  he  got  down  on  the  floor  on  one  knee, 
and  all  through  the  prayer  an  old  gentleman  near  by 
on  a  front  seat  grunted  at  frequent  intervals  approv- 
ingly, and  once  or  twice  brought  forth  an  audible 
"  Amen,"  or  "  Praise  God."  This  same  old  gentle- 
man offered  one  of  the  prayers  of  the  service.  In  a 
rude  way  this  prayer,  with  its  earnestness  and  Biblical 
phrasing,  was  quite  eloquent. 

The  preacher  was  shallow  and  ignorant,  and  his 
chief  claim  to  his  position  was  his  gift  for  speaking 
without  hesitating  too  long  for  words.  At  the  same 
time  there  was  a  picturesque  vigor  about  his  ideas  and 
expression  that  made  what  he  said  better  than  the 
thin-glossed  sentences  and  hair-splitting  arguments  of 


Country  Churches  and  Chapels 


295 


many  of  the  better  educated  clergy.      But  his   logic 
was  perfectly  hopeless,  and  he  was  very  far  from  prov- 


A 

A  Village  Chapel 

ing  what  he  said  he  proved.  He  was  uncommonly 
profuse  with  his  h\  and  said  y&earth,  /^edify,  ^us,  /weight, 
y^anger,  //israel,  etc.  He  called  maniac,  mani^ac ; 
neither,  nither ;  statutes,  statues.  Here  are  a  few 
fragments  from   his  discourse  :  — 

"Those  that  was  hunfaithful." 

"  Bartimus,  he  had  'quired,  and  he  had  heard,  and 
light  dawned  into  his  soul." 

"  The  world  to  once  lift  its  voice ;  and  with  what 
hobjec' .''     It  was  theirselves  made  the  hobsticle." 


296  Among  English  Hedgerows 

"  Now  what  says  my  tex'  about  Zaccheus  ?  He  got 
into  a  tree  to  see  our  Lord  pass.  Methinks  it  was 
not  only  a  curiosity  desire  that  made  Zaccheus  cHmb 
that  tree.  But  'member  he  was  a  great  sinner — had 
he  a  right  to  get  into  a  sycamore  tree  ?  Now  the 
Lord  Jesus  knowed  what  was  goin'  on  —  he  knowed 
that  Zaccheus  was  up  that  tree,  and  he  called  hunto 
him,  '  Zaccheus,  come  down,'  and  he  come  down. 
Then  the  Lord  said  hunto  him  he  would  go  with  him 
to  his  house  —  not  that  house  over  there,  not  that 
house  up  on  the  hill  yonder,  not  that  house  over  at 
Halstead  —  no,  this  house. 

"  Before  the  'oly  Spirit  had  come  down  it  was  dif- 
ferent, but  we  can  rejoice,  my  bretheren,  to-day  —  we 
can  rejoice,  my  sisters,  to-day,  that  He  don't  want  hus 
to  give  nothin'  —  no,  not  nothin'." 

The  preacher  did  a  good  deal  of  roaring  and  shout- 
ing which  seemed  hardly  necessary  in  so  small  a  place 
and  before  so  small  an  audience.  In  the  prayers  much 
stress  was  laid  on  the  promise  that  the  Lord  would  be 
with  them  even  when  but  two  or  three  were  gathered 
together  in  his  name. 

The  building  was  small  and  exceedingly  homely.    It 
was  sheathed  outside  with  sheets  of  crinkly 

Methodist  .  _       .  ,       .  ,  ■.  j 

gray  iron.      Inside  it  was  very  bare.      Most 
of  the  floor  space  was  taken  up  with  rude  settees  that 


Country  Churches  and  Chapels  297 

would  perhaps  seat  one  hundred  people.  At  the 
farther  end  was  a  pulpit  draped  along  the  front  with 
red  cloth.  Above  the  pulpit  were  two  lamps  hung 
against  the  wall,  one  at  each  end  of  a  motto  "  God 
bless  our  school." 

I  attended  evening  service  at  the  chapel.  When 
I  came  in,  a  young  man  sat  at  the  harmonium  in 
front  of  the  pulpit  trying  to  finger  out  "  The  Sweet 
By  and  By  "  with  one  hand.  Either  he  was  clumsy, 
or  the  instrument  was  out  of  order,  for  the  result  was 
pretty  dismal.  Near  the  back  of  the  room  was  a 
stove-like  grate  with  a  pipe  running  up  from  it  and 
out  at  the  side  of  the  building.  Just  in  front  of  the 
glowing  blaze  in  the  grate  sat  a  settee  full  of  boys,  five 
in  all.  A  weather-beaten  and  bony  old  man  occupied 
the  seat  back  of  the  stove,  and  there  were  several  other 
people  scattered  about  the  room. 

Presently  the  young  man  at  the  harmonium  shut  up 
the  instrument  and  mounted  the  pulpit.  He  said,  "We 
will  begin  by  singing  the  eighty-eighth  hymn.  Will 
some  one  in  the  audience  please  start  the  tune  ?  "  We 
all  rose,  but  no  one  volunteered  to  sing,  and  there  was 
an  awkward  pause.  While  we  were  waiting,  the  door 
opened  and  in  bustled  a  fresh-looking  young  woman. 
She  came  up  the  aisle,  stepped  to  the  side  of  one  of  the 
women,  who  shared  her  hymn-book  with  the  newcomer, 
and  then  the  girl  at  once  started  the  tune.     The  rest 


298  Among  English   Hedgerows 

promptly  pitched  in,  and  we  produced  a  lot  of  noise  — 
it  could  not  be  called  harmony ;  yet  perhaps  what  it 
lacked  in  quality  was  made  up  in  quantity.  I  do  not 
know  why  it  was,  but  the  non-conformists  seemed  to 


Putting  up  the  Shutters  on  Saturday  Night 

have  much   louder  voices   in   their  worship   than    the 
Church  of  England  people. 

The  sermon  was  bombastic  and  commonplace.    Lack 


Country  Churches  and  Chapels  299 

of  culture  and  education  in  the  preacher  were  very  ap- 
parent. His  ordinary  week-day  occupation  was  that  of 
grocer,  and  there  were  those  who  said  that  his  Sunday 
labor  at  the  chapel  was  undertaken  because  he  liked  to 
hear  his  own  oratory,  and  because  it  drew  trade  to  his 
grocer's  shop.  The  point  that  he  made  particularly 
emphatic  in  his  discourse  this  evening  was  the  insuffi- 
ciency of  a  "  theoretical  knowledge  of  Christ,"  a  phrase 
that  he  repeated  again  and  again.  He  talked  about  the 
"devil"  and  "damnation"  and  "eternal  burning"  with 
confidence  and  certainty.  Incidentally  he  spoke  of  a 
time  when  the  angels  "blasted  their  trumpets."  He 
brought  in  a  good  deal  of  personal  religious  reminis- 
cence, and  among  other  things  told  us  that  at  the  period 
when  he  became  a  Christian  there  was  a  whole  week 
when  he  could  neither  eat  nor  sleep,  and  he  well  remem- 
bered how  the  voice  of  God  came  to  him  and  said, 
"  Rise,  son,  thy  sins  are  forgiven  thee." 

At  the  close  of  the  sermon  the  preacher  came  down 
out  of  the  pulpit,  and  he  and  the  young  woman  with 
the  red  cheeks  sang  a  duet.  After  that  an  elderly 
brother  up  in  front  kneeled  on  the  floor  with  his  elbows 
in  a  chair  and  made  a  prayer  which  was  interrupted  at 
intervals  by  the  preacher  with  low-voiced  responses  such 
as  "  Praise  God  !  "  "  That's  so  !  "  "  Yes  !  "  "  No  !  " 
"Amen  !  "  and  occasionally  ecstatic  " A-a-hs  !  "  Then 
the  girl  with  the  red  cheeks  prayed  emotionally,  and  the 


300  Among  English  Hedgerows 

preacher  called  on  those  present  who  had  found  Christ 
to  raise  their  hands.  He  said  he  saw  that  some  hands 
were  not  up,  and  urged  that  "  now  was  the  appointed 
time,"  and  asked  any  who  might  be  in  doubt  to  come 
forward,  and  after  more  urging  and  singing  he  gave  it 
up,  and  the  meeting  was  closed,  and  the  congregation, 
eighteen,  all  told,  turned  toward  the  door. 

A  woman  had  lent  me  a  hymn-book,  and  now  when 
I  returned  it  she  reached  out  for  my  hand,  shook  it, 
and  said  warmly,  "  God  bless  you,  sir." 


XXI 

TWO    ENGLISH    SUNDAY-SCHOOLS 

THEY  were  both  in  country  villages  of  south- 
ern England.  One  was  a  "church"  Sunday- 
school,  the  other  a  "chapel"  Sunday-school. 
As  is  usual  in  country  communities,  the  church  Sunday- 
school  met  in  the  village  schoolhouse.  Ten  o'clock  in 
the  morning  was  its  meeting  time.  It  was  a  Sunday 
in  May  that  I  attended,  but  the  day  was  almost  wintry 
with  its  keen  wind  and  dull  clouds.  About  thirty-five 
children  were  present,  seated  in  class  groups  on  the 
antiquated  wooden  benches  of  the  queer  old  school- 
room. There  was  a  class  of  the  older  boys,  a  class 
of  the  older  girls,  a  class  of  younger  children,  and  a 
class  of  infants.  The  last  was  without  a  teacher,  but 
the  largest  infant — a  small  girl — was  making  the  others 
repeat  some  passages  of  Scripture  and  read  something 
out  of  an  old  book  of  Bible  pictures.  The  other  classes 
were  taught  by  two  elderly  ladies  and  by  another  woman 
who  was  more  youthful. 

The  vicar's  wife  had  charge  of  the  school.     She  was 
at  "  the  top  "  of  the  room  with  a  class  of  girls.     She 

301 


302  Among  English  Hedgerows 

was  a  thin,  peaked-faced  person  in  a  heavy  cloak  and 
woollen  gloves.  She  wore  little  gold  rings  in  her  ears, 
and  had  heavy  silver  bracelets  on  her  wrists  that  kept 
coming  unfastened.  She  was  a  serious  person,  and 
leaned  forward  with  her  elbows  on  her  knees  when  she 
asked  questions. 

She  had  her  class  repeat  from  memory  parts  of  the 
English  Church  service,  and  then  asked  the  scholars 
questions  from  a  lesson-book  that  she  told  me  was  "  a 
very  good  one."  This  lesson-book,  which  she  let  me 
look  at,  was  full  of  stupid  Biblical  and  theological  ques- 
tions of  a  character  calculated  to  make  one's  head  spin 
if  one  tried  to  think  them  out.  But  the  scholars  of 
this  class  would  knit  their  brows  and  bite  their  lips  and 
roll  their  eyeballs  toward  the  ceiling,  and  give  to  the 
most  puzzling  questions  answers  that  their  teacher 
accepted  as  right.  When  they  could  not  answer  off 
hand,  the  teacher  had  them  look  up  a  solution  by 
references  in  their  Bibles.  That  did  away  with  the 
necessity  for  an  answer  of  their  own,  and  when  they 
found  the  right  passages  they  simply  read  them  in 
childish  sing-song. 

The  boys'  class,  at  the  "  bottom  "  of  the  room,  was 
taught  by  a  stout  lady  of  the  smiling  and  "  enthused  " 
sort.  The  older  mixed  class  had  a  young  woman  in 
charge,  who  was  of  the  faithful,  mild,  and  emotional 
type. 


o 


Two  English  Sunday-schools  305 

The  teacherless  infants  presently  became  sick  of  their 
Bible  pictures  and  got  a  volume  of  "  Chatterbox  "  from 
somewhere  to  look  through.  Some  of  the  infants  stood 
up  and  talked  aloud,  and  one  small  girl  walked  out  in 
the  middle  of  the  floor  and  put  her  finger  in  her  mouth 
and  looked  around.  But  her  next  older  sister,  two 
inches  taller,  in  the  class  above,  saw  her  and  was  much 
shocked  by  her  behavior.  She  stepped  out  and  grabbed 
the  child  and  sat  her  down  hard  on  the  backless  bench 
by  her  side  in  the  young  woman's  class.  Infant  jun- 
ior's hat  was  tilted  backward,  and  infant  senior  pulled 
it  square  and  took  out  her  handkerchief  and  wiped  in- 
fant junior's  nose.  Then  the  two  looked  at  the  teacher 
and  began  to  consider  "  What  types  of  Christ's  justifi- 
cation are  to  be  found  in  the  Old  Testament  ? " 

The  vicar's  wife  in  addition  to  teaching  her  class  of 
girls  tried  to  keep  the  infants  crowding  about  the 
"Chatterbox"  in  order  by  turning  on  them  sharply 
every  now  and  then,  and  saying,  "  Sh-h-h-h  ! "  or, 
"  Sit  down,  sit  down  !  "  or,  "  Stop  that  noise  !  " 

After  a  time  the  school  broke  up,  and  in  two  or 
three  irregular  flocks,  wandered  along  the  lane  that 
led  churchward.  I  followed  after,  and  thus  chanced 
to  see  a  little  girl  who  was  going  in  the  opposite  direc- 
tion do  obeisance  to  the  gentry  by  dropping  a  courtesy 
to  the  vicar's  wife.  The  performance  was  rather  odd 
and  pretty. 


3o6 


Among  English  Hedgerows 


This   Sunday-school   was   probably    not  up   to   the 
average.     I  think,  however,  that  even  at  its  best,  the 


On  the  Way  to  Sunday-school  by  a  Field  Path 

English  Sunday-school  is  drier  and  more  formal,  and 
that  it  has  less  variety,  than  in  America.  The  usual 
plan  of  the  English  Church  Sunday-school  is  this :  It 
meets  at  ten  in  the  morning  at  the  schoolhouse.  First, 
the  children  recite  the  "  collect  "  for  the  day,  which  they 
are  supposed  to  have  learned.  Then  they  read  passages 
from  the  Bible,  and  the  teachers  talk  about  what  their 
scholars  read,  and  explain  it.  Some  Sunday-schools 
use  question  books.  The  only  music  is  the  singing 
of  a  hymn.     At  a  quarter  of  eleven  the  children  form 


Two   English  Sunday-schools  307 

in  a  double  column  and  march  from  the  schoolhouse 
to  the  church,  where  they  all  sit  together  in  a  place  as- 
signed to  them.  At  this  village  the  children  had  the 
rear  pews,  and  they  did  a  good  deal  of  visiting  with 
one  another  during  service. 

The  other  Sunday-school  that  I  attended  was  at  a 
small  Congregational  "  chapel."  I  approached  the 
place  of  meeting  at  a  little  before  eleven  one  Sunday 
morning.  I  had  supposed  there  would  be  a  service 
at  that  hour,  just  as  there  was  at  the  village  "  church." 
But  there  were  no  people  moving  in  the  chapel  direc- 
tion and  no  loiterers  around  the  entrance.  I  went  in. 
Several  pews  about  the  tiny  stove  at  one  side  of  the 
room  were  occupied  by  a  group  of  children,  and  before 
them  sat  a  spectacled  old  man.  It  had  all  the  marks 
of  being  a  Sunday-school  class  and  its  teacher,  and  I 
saw  that  I  had  made  a  mistake  and  that  the  chapel  did 
not  have  a  morning  service. 

As  soon  as  I  had  opened  the  door  every  eve  was 
fastened  on  me,  and  the  whole  crowd  was  struck  dumb 
with  astonishment.  They  probably  had  never  had  a 
visitor  before.  I  sank  into  a  seat,  but  they  looked 
and  looked,  teacher  and  all,  till  I  broke  the  spell  bv 
saying  "  Good  morning  !  " 

"Good  morning!"  the  teacher  responded.  Then 
he  read  a  few  sentences  from  the  book  he  had  in  his 


3o8  Among  English  Hedgerows 

hand,  thought  better  of  it,  and  stepped  around  to  ask 
if  I  wouldn't  come  up  in  front  and  address  the  chil- 
dren. I  begged  off,  and  the  teacher  returned  to  his 
task.  He  was  lame,  and  he  had  a  red  nose.  He  was 
reading  a  story  out  of  a  little  square  Sunday-school 
book.  The  tale  was  about  a  man  who  held  a  meeting 
in  some  rough  city  neighborhood,  and  of  a  ragamuffin 
hearer  who  got  converted.  The  teacher  read  the  story 
in  as  unearthly  a  voice  as  I  have  ever  heard  —  some- 
thing as  a  minister  who  is  oratorical  reads  the  Bible. 
He  had  the  most  rolling  and  solemn  of  religious  tones, 
and  kept  these  tones  up  through  descriptions,  con- 
versations, slang,  and  all.  The  only  times  he  was 
natural  were  when  the  members  of  the  class  grew  too 
uneasy.  Then  he  would  stop  in  the  middle  of  a  sen- 
tence and  say  sharply,  "  Eddie,  you  sit  down  !  We'll 
'ave  you  hout  'ere  by  me  presently." 

Eddie  was  the  most  fidgety  boy  in  the  class  Finally 
the  teacher  got  out  of  patience  with  him,  and  when  the 
youngster  was  hanging  over  the  pew  in  front  of  where 
he  was  supposed  to  sit,  the  old  gentleman  stole  up  to 
him  softly  and  gave  him  a  box  on  the  ear. 

Occasionally  the  teacher  stopped  to  point  a  moral 
in  the  tale ;  but  these  morals  were  uniformly  dismal 
and  theological  and  way  outside  the  children's  com- 
prehension—  and  any  one's  else,  for  that  matter. 

There  were  present  sixteen  scholars,  from  four  to 


Two  English  Sunday-schools 


309 


thirteen  years  of  age.  Of  these  three  or  four  appeared 
bright  and  were  well  dressed ;  the  rest  were  stupid  and 
homely  and  rather  shabby  in  clothing.  They  had  that 
uneasy  and  constant  tendency  to  twist  that  you  find 
in  children  everywhere;  but  considering  what  they  had 
to  bear,  they  behaved  very  well. 

After  the  teacher  had 
read  a  couple  of 
chapters  from  the 
story  book,  the 
school  rose  and 
sang  a  hymn. 
It  went  rather 
shakily  and 
d  o  u  b  t  f  u  1 1  y . 
Then  Bibles 
were  distrib- 
uted, and  a 
chapter  was  read 
from  one  of  Paul's  Epistles.  The  six  scholars  who 
were  able  to  read  each  took  a  verse  in  turn.  The 
teacher  read  extracts  from  other  parts  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  made  occasional  applications  and  expla- 
nations. 

The  Bibles  had  shiny  black  oilcloth  covers,  and 
some  of  the  boys  amused  themselves  by  blowing  their 
warm   breath   on   them,  which   made  a   mist   on    the 


A  Stile 


3IO  Among  English  Hedgerows 

oilcloth  surface,  and  on  that  they  drew  figures   and 
pictures. 

Sunday-school  closed  with  a  prayer  by  the  teacher. 
The  children,  in  this,  all  got  up  on  their  knees  on  the 
seats  and  leaned  over  the  backs  of  the  pews.  After 
the  prayer  all  got  cheerful,  packed  up  the  Bibles  in  a 
box,  slid  the  box  under  a  seat,  and  went  out  into  the 
street. 


XXII 

IN  THE  LAND  OF  LORNA  DOONE 

EARLY  in  June  I  made  a  coaching  trip  along  the 
coast  of  north  Devon.  It  is  a  lonely  region  of 
great  hills  and  deep  valleys,  and  the  railroad 
goes  no  further  than  Minehead  in  Somersetshire. 
Minehead  is  a  dull  town  ordinarily,  but  during  the 
tourist  season,  at  train  time,  the  scene  about  the 
station,  with  its  gathering  of  cabs,  coaches,  and  other 
conveyances,  is  a  busy  and  animated  one.  The  most 
imposing  of  the  vehicles  backed  up  to  the  station  plat- 
form on  the  day  I  reached  Minehead  was  a  four-horse 
coach  that  had  the  name  "  Lorna  Doone  "  painted  in 
large  letters  on  its  rear.  It  was  in  charge  of  an  aris- 
tocratic looking  driver,  in  buff  uniform,  with  a  less 
elaborate  footman  for  assistant. 

My  traps,  along  with  a  lot  of  others,  were  hustled 
inside  the  Lorna  Doone,  and  a  mountainous  pile  of 
larger  luggage  was  heaped  up  and  strapped  on  top 
just  behind  the  driver.  Next  a  ladder  was  set  against 
the  side  of  the  coach,  and  the  passengers  climbed  to 

3" 


312  Among  English   Hedgerows 

their  places.  Then  the  driver  picked  up  his  reins, 
and  away  we  went.  The  footman  was  the  last  on 
board.  He  caught  on  nonchalantly  at  the  moment 
of  starting,  swung  up  to  the  rear  seat,  and  blew  an 
enlivening  strain  on  his  long  horn.  This  music  he 
repeated  at  intervals  as  we  rattled  through  the  Mine- 
head  streets. 

A  ride  on  the  outside  of  a  big  coach  has  a  touch  of 
romance  and  power  about  it  that  thrills  and  inspires 
one.  We  looked  down  on  everything  and  everybody. 
All  the  teams  on  the  road  gave  way  to  us.  When  we 
sighted  a  vehicle  on  ahead,  no  matter  which  way  it  was 
going,  the  footman  played  one  of  his  little  tunes  on  the 
long  horn,  and  the  humbler  conveyance  drew  off  by 
the  roadside  while  we  dashed  past. 

Our  first  few  miles  lay  through  rich  farm  lowlands, 
but  when  we  reached  Porlock  the  driver  said  we  had  a 
bit  of  steep  road  ahead  and  asked  the  men  on  the  coach 
to  walk.  The  ascent  proved  to  be  a  three-mile  hill 
with  an  altitude  of  fourteen  hundred  feet.  The  country 
on  the  way  up  turned  to  a  barren  heath  of  rolling  hills 
that  swept  away  southward  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach. 
This  heathery  highland  waste  is  Exmoor  Forest,  the 
only  region  in  England  where  the  red  deer  is  still  found 
in  its  wild  state,  and  the  forest  is  famous  hunting  ground. 
Hundreds  of  horsemen  gather  at  the  stag  meets  every 
year. 


In  the  Land  of  Lorna  Doone  313 


June  Roses 


The  wind  blew  a  hurricane  on  this  hilltop,  and  we 
were  all  glad  when,  a  little  farther  on,  we  sighted  a 
group  of  farm  buildings  where  the  driver  said  we  would 


314  Among  English   Hedgerows 

stop  to  change  horses.  We  drew  up  in  the  lee  of  a 
stone  barn,  and  an  old  lady  from  the  house  brought 
out  tea  and  a  platter  of  buttered  bread,  and  the  pas- 
sengers had  these  refreshments  passed  up  to  them,  and 
sipped  and  munched  as  they  sat  on  the  coach-top. 

The  rest  of  the  journey  was  nearly  all  down  hill,  and 
much  of  the  way  we  slipped  along  with  a  clog  under  a 
rear  wheel.  At  one  point  the  driver  called  attention  to 
a  distant  depression  in  the  heath  where  a  momentary 
gleam  of  sunshine  from  the  clouded  sky  touched  with 
emerald  a  fragment  of  woodland,  and  said  there  lay  the 
Doone  Valley.  It  was  far  inland,  and  that  was  the  only 
glimpse  we  had  of  it  that  day.  The  coach  was  bound 
for  Lynmouth  and  Lynton,  two  villages  on  the  coast, 
and  in  the  last  few  miles  we  looked  down  on  a  white- 
capped  sea  with  a  few  little  vessels  struggling  along  on 
it,  while,  far  across  its  level,  in  the  west,  the  sun  glared 
through  the  rifts  in  the  clouds. 

The  coast  was  wild  and  high-cliffed,  with  many  bold 
headlands  reaching  out  from  the  mainland,  and  our 
road  skirted  a  steep  hillside  that  fell  away  almost  from 
the  wheel  track,  in  a  tremendous  precipice  to  the  surf 
of  the  shore  deep  down  below.  On  the  heather  heights 
we  had  crossed  I  had  been  afraid  the  top-heavy  coach 
would  be  tipped  over  by  the  wind ;  now  I  feared  it 
would  get  dumped  down  the  hillside  by  a  jolt  of  the 
wheels,  or  by  a  swing  around  a  turn  in  the  road.     At 


In  the  Land  of  Lorna  Doone  315 

last,  Lynmouth  was  close  ahead,  and  we  slid  down  into 
the  slippery  shadows  of  the  trees  in  a  narrow  valley, 
crossed  the  stone  arch  of  a  bridge,  and  entered  the 
village.  The  horn  tooted  briskly,  the  coach  stopped, 
and  the  passengers  began  to  climb  down  the  ladders 
and  at  once  were  surrounded  by  numerous  porters 
soliciting  them  to  come  to  their  various  hotels.  After 
the  luggage  had  been  tumbled  off,  an  extra  horse  was 
hitched  on,  and  the  coach  climbed  a  steep  zigzag  up  a 
great  cliff  to  Lynton,  high  above. 

Lynton  and  Lynmouth  are  twin  villages.  Each  is 
a  snug  hamlet  of  lodging-houses  and  hotels,  and  they 
are  so  near  together  that  you  could  throw  a  stone  from 
Lynton's  high  perch  down  on  the  roofs  of  the  sister 
village  in  the  ravine.  I  stopped  in  Lynmouth.  The 
deep,  green  dell  with  its  huddle  of  houses  taking  up 
every  inch  of  available  space,  the  great  hills  towering 
about  and  the  streams  that  come  rioting  down  from 
the  heights,  is  very  charming. 

The  next  morning  was  dull  and  misty ;  but  here  I 
was  right  on  the  edge  of  the  country  that  Blackmore 
has  made  so  romantically  interesting,  and,  in  spite  of 
the  threatening  weather,  I  started  on  a  walk  to  seek 
for  the  heart  of  this  region  of  enchantment,  the  valley 
where  dwelt  the  old  robber  band  of  Doones.  This 
lay  something  like  a  dozen  miles  back  from  the  coast, 
and  the  route  to  it  led  much  of  the  way  up  a  vast 


3i6  Among  English  Hedgerows 

crooked  glen.  A  stream  roared  and  foamed  in  the 
deep,  wooded  ravine,  and  big  stony  mountains  towered 
on  either  side. 

There  were  sheep  in  many  of  the  fields  all  along 
the  road  from  Lynmouth  up.  They  were  picking 
about  even  on  the  most  rocky  mountain  sides.  Often 
I  saw  them  in  the  highway,  but  at  my  approach  they 
would  leap  nimbly  away,  up  the  hillside  or  down, 
whichever  was  most  convenient.  The  sheep  were  of 
a  horned  variety,  and  in  their  alert  vigor  and  look  of 
intelligence  were  very  attractive. 

In  time  I  came  to  a  little  hamlet  of  whitewashed 
cottages,  and  noticed  with  interest  that  each  cottage 
had  a  pile  of  peat  near  it.  The  piles  were  at  this  sea- 
son much  reduced,  but  I  saw  one  that  was  still  about 
ten  feet  high  and  eight  square,  with  a  bit  of  thatch  on 
top  to  protect  it  from  the  weather.  I  regarded  the 
peat  with  a  good  deal  of  curiosity,  for  it  was  the  first 
I  had  seen. 

The  day  had  been  misty  from  early  morning,  but 
now  the  mist  turned  to  rain,  and  I  stepped  in  at  an 
open  village  door  for  shelter.  I  was  welcomed  by  a 
frowzy  woman  with  a  baby  in  her  arms.  She  invited 
me  to  sit  in  the  kitchen,  but  I  preferred  to  stand  in 
the  little  entry  and  look  out  on  the  rain,  and  leave 
that  apartment  to  the  occupants  already  in  it.  These 
were  a  hen  and  chickens  picking  about  its  grimy  floor. 


In  the  Land  of  Lorna  Doone  317 

and  several  children  who  were  quarrelling  in  the  un- 
easy way  usual  with  children  when  they  have  nothing 
with  which  to  occupy  themselves.  Two  of  the  boys 
were  declaring  stoutly  that  they  were  going  to  church 
that  evening  (it  was  Sunday),  and  a  sister  was  harass- 
ing them  by  snapping  out  over  and  over  again,  "  You 
bean't,  you  bean't."  The  mother  had  to  threaten  to 
"  lick  the  whole  lot,"  before  they  would  desist  from 
their  religious  controversy. 

The  sky  lightened  up  after  a  time,  and  I  continued 
on  up  the  valley.  Eight  miles  from  Lynmouth  I 
reached  Malmsmead,  a  group  of  two  or  three  small 
farmhouses,  which  lies  directly  at  the  entrance  to  the 
Doone  Valley.  The  main  highway  continues  straight 
on,  and  those  who  choose  to  visit  the  stronghold  of 
the  Doones  have  to  take  a  side  road  which  soon  dwin- 
dles to  a  lane,  and  the  lane,  a  little  farther  on,  becomes 
a  rude  bridle-path.  It  is  customary  for  ladies  to 
make  the  tour  from  Malmsmead  up  the  Doone  Valley 
on  horseback.  The  choice  lies  between  that  and  going 
on  foot,  and,  as  the  round  trip  is  six  miles,  pony-back 
travellers  are  common  in  the  glen. 

The  valley  opens  southward  back  into  a  high  wide 
sweep  of  the  hills.  The  slopes  were  sometimes  partly 
wooded,  but  in  the  main  were  of  bare,  dull,  olive-brown 
heather.  In  the  hollow  was  "  Badgeworthy  Stream" 
fretting  along  its  stony  course.     Many  groups  of  sheep 


3i8 


Among  English   Hedgerows 


were  feeding  on  the  barren  pastureland,  which,  soon 
after  I  passed  Malmsmead,  became  one  great  unfenced 
expanse  of  heath  called  "  The  Common."  All  the 
farmers  around  had  sheep  grazing  on  it. 

Lovers  of  Mr.  Blackmoore's  book  will  be  disap- 
pointed if  they  expect  nature  in  this  region  to  be  what 
he  pictures  it  in  "  Lorna  Doone."  Nature  gave  him 
hints,  and  his  imagination  did  the  rest.  There  is  no 
wild,  inaccessible  glen  with  a  precipice-guarded  portal. 
At  the  spot  where  the  entrance  to  the  Doone  strong- 


Doone  Valley 


In  the  Land  of  Lorna  Doone  319 

hold  should  be,  Badgeworthy  Stream  is  joined  by  a 
modest  trout-brook  that  tumbles  down  a  rocky  hollow 
through  a  little  wood  of  scrubby  oak  whose  branches 
are  strangely  twisted  and  mossy.  The  stream,  as  it 
comes  through  the  wood,  is  a  succession  of  pools,  and 
of  slides  down  green,  mossed  terraces  of  rock.  In 
the  book,  the  boy  John  Ridd  nearly  loses  his  life 
climbing  up  these  slippery  slides.  But  here  in  real 
nature  there  is  nothing  that  need  have  kept  him  from 
picking  his  way  along  the  banks,  though  there  are 
occasional  shoulders  and  ledges  of  rock  that  push  out 
from  the  hill.  At  a  certain  point  I  crept  under  one 
of  the  ledges  to  get  out  of  the  rain  and  the  drip  of 
the  trees.  There  was  nothing  "jagged,  black,  and 
terrible  "  about  it  or  any  of  the  other  ledges.  Yet  in 
a  way  the  spot  was  very  satisfactory.  The  germ  of 
it  all  was  there,  and  trees  and  rocks  and  banks  had 
a  moss-grown,  lichened  look  of  age  full  of  mysterious 
suggestion.  It  was  delightful  to  sit  there  and  think 
of  the  little  fellow  struggling  up  the  terraced  slides  of 
the  stream,  and  of  that  first  meeting  with  Lorna. 

I  went  a  mile  up  the  lonely  valley,  beyond  the 
V  .iterslide,  and,  on  this  whole,  hilly,  watersoaked  heath 
saw  not  even  a  sheep.  I  kept  on  till  I  came  to  the 
end  of  the  ravine  where  can  still  be  discerned  a  few 
low,  grass-grown  ruins  of  walls  that  were  once  the 
Doone  huts.     Here,  towards  the  close  of  the  seven- 


320 


Among  English  Hedgerows 


teenth   century,  lived   this   old   band  of  outlaws   and 
levied   blackmail  on   the   country  round.     Traditions 


■■iliUliillll  1                       III— 

^*'i. 

'f^^       ■ '^s^^^^^QSHI^^K'^HHb^ '- ' 

'  ^^  -  ^^  '-'*  ^^^^^WJgSlP^    '' 

tf  i^.-\>o  '-^^■Hj^ ' 

^Mk-     '                                                                "W             ■.           . 

*^-  ^^5ff^^*^**^^  ■ 

^.^j^^Ml          "  "^"'''                       ^fcjB^^- 

■I   I'    1  iiJ^B^B^mAi ^''^'    ^^ :L^l_:sJl 

John  Ridd's  Waterslide 

of  their  terrible  strength  and  cruelty  still  linger  in  the 
neighborhood.  In  the  end  a  particularly  fiendish  act 
of  theirs  roused  the  country  to  exterminate  "the  entire 
nest  of  vipers." 

Toward  evening  I  tramped  back  through  mists  and 
mud  to  Lynmouth;  but  the  next  morning  I  went 
again    to    linger    about    the    little   valley   where    the 


In  the  Land  of  Lorna  Doone  321 

Doones  had  made  their  home.  The  day  was  bright 
and  gentle,  and  the  hours  slipped  swiftly  past.  It  was 
nearly  sunset  when  I  returned  to  Malmsmead.  The 
afternoon  was  so  far  spent  that  I  did  not  care  to  walk 
back  to  Lynmouth,  and  I  looked  about  the  tiny  ham- 
let to  discover  what  chances  there  were  to  get  a  night's 
lodging.  A  little  river  coursed  through  the  hollow 
among  the  houses,  and  just  below  a  pretty,  double- 
arched  stone  bridge  that  the  road  climbed  over  as  if 
it  had  been  a  little  hill,  was  a  woman  kneeling  on  the 
stones  by  the  streamside,  washing.  The  sight  was  so 
picturesque  that  I  drew  nearer,  but  it  took  the  edge 
off  the  charm  when  the  woman  explained  that  there 
had  been  a  pig-killing  at  one  of  the  farms,  and  that 
she  was  "  washing  out  the  insides "  of  the  late  pig. 
She  said  her  daughter  was  coming  down  soon  to  help 
carry  up  the  tub.  I  had  not  made  the  acquaintance 
of  the  woman  for  the  purpose  of  discussing  her  employ- 
ment, but  to  arrange,  if  possible,  to  get  a  stopping- 
place  for  the  night.  The  result  of  our  negotiations 
was  favorable,  and  when  the  daughter  came  to  help 
carry  home  the  tub,  I  followed  the  pair  to  the  kitchen 
of  a  thatched  farmhouse  near  by. 

The  most  notable  piece  of  furniture  in  this  thick- 
walled,  tile-floored  kitchen  was  a  heavy  plank  table 
that  ran  nearly  the  full  length  of  one  side  of  the  room. 
Behind  the  table  was  a  long  seat  fastened  against  the 


322  Among  English  Hedgerows 

wall,  and  on  the  other  side  a  ten-foot  bench  of  home 
manufacture,  with  great  wide-spreading  legs  at  each 
end.  I  sat  on  this  bench  and  talked  with  the  various 
members  of  the  household,  while  two  small,  red-headed 
'girls,  who  could  just  manage  to  get  their  elbows  on 
the  table,  seated  themselves  opposite  and  kept  a  silent 
watch  of  me. 

The  children  of  this  Malmsmead  home  numbered 
seven,  and  were  all  girls  —  a  fact  not  to  be  regarded 
with  equanimity,  for  girls  have  but  a  poor  time  of  it 
in  this  region.  They  rarely  can  make  their  way  in  the 
world  very  effectively,  and  as  their  outdoor  usefulness 
is  limited,  they  are  not  thought  to  be  of  much  account, 
particularly  if  they  are  in  the  majority.  These  girls 
did  a  good  deal  of  boys'  work,  such  as  cow-driving 
and  odd  jobs.  Three  of  them  walked  every  day  to  a 
school  four  miles  distant.  They  might  have  attended 
a  school  two  miles  nearer,  but  the  latter  was  not  kept 
by  a  master — only  by  a  woman  —  and  the  parents  were 
of  the  opinion  that  a  woman  did  not  get  her  scholars 
along  as  a  man  would. 

For  breakfast  the  next  morning  the  smaller  children 
had  simply  bread  crumbed  in  hot  milk.  The  others 
of  the  family  fared  on  bacon,  fried  potatoes,  bread  and 
butter,  and  tea,  while  for  my  especial  benefit  there  was 
added  boiled  eggs,  jam,  and  Devonshire  cream.  This 
final  item  is  a  famous  delicacy  in  England,  and  it  is 


The  Bridge  at  the  Entrance  to  Doone  Valley 


In  the  Land  of  Lorna  Doone  ^'^^ 

so  very  good  it  seems  a  pity  we  do  not  have  it  in 
America. 

The  process  of  making  Devonshire  cream  as  I  saw 
it  in  this  farmhouse  was  as  follows :  First  the  woman 
of  the  house,  when  she  finished  milking,  strained  the 
milk  into  some  great  earthen  pans.  In  them  it  stood 
till  the  following  morning.  Then  she  put  the  pans  on 
the  fire  and  let  the  milk  scald.  After  that  the  pans 
were  set  away  again,  and  at  the  end  of  another  twenty- 
four  hours  were  skimmed.  The  result  was  Devonshire 
cream,  and  no  one  who  has  ever  tasted  it  can  forget  its 
dainty  sweetness.  It  is  eaten  as  a  relish  with  bread, 
usually  accompanied  by  jam  or  marmalade. 

This  farm  had  no  well,  and  most  of  the  water  for 
house  use  was  brought  from  the  near  stream.  Water 
for  drinking  and  special  purposes  had  to  be  conveyed 
from  a  spring  quite  a  little  walk  below  in  the  meadows, 
a  task  that  usually  fell  to  the  oldest  girl. 

The  kitchen  was  without  a  sink,  as  were  most  farm 
kitchens  of  that  neighborhood.  When  the  dishwash- 
ing was  being  done,  the  pan  of  water  was  set  on  the 
bench  by  the  table  and  the  dishes  were  drained  on 
the  table  itself  Slops  were  turned  into  a  big  wooden 
.pail  or  a  piggin,  to  be  thrown  out  into  the  yard  when 
it  became  convenient  or  necessary. 

My  landlady  after  breakfast  did  her  churning.  She 
brought  out  a  good-sized  wooden  tub,  set  it  on  the 


326 


Among  English  Hedgerows 


bench  by  the  table,  turned  in  a  great  bowl  of  cream, 
rolled  up  her  sleeves,  and  did  the  churning  by  stirring 
the  cream  around  with  her  hand.  The  butter  soon 
came  at  that  season,  but  in  frosty  winter  weather  it 
might  be  a  two  hours'  job,  and  by  the  time  the  cream 


A  Devon   Farm  Family 


had  been  stirred  to  butter  the  woman  had  rubbed  her 

knuckles  sore  and  her  arm  was  "  ready  to  drop  off." 

Most  of  the  year  she  churned  every  other  day,  but 


In  the  Land  of  Lorna  Doone  327 

in  summer,  when  the  cream  was  Hable  to  sour,  she 
churned  every  day.  Later  in  the  week  she  would  take 
the  butter  to  a  town  ten  miles  distant  to  market. 

The  family  kept  two  sheep  dogs.  Such  dogs  are 
not  taxed  in  England.  On  "fancy"  dogs  there  is  a 
rate  of  "  seven  and  sixpence,"  but  collies  are  workers 
—  necessary  members  of  society.  Sheep  are  kept  out 
in  the  pastures  all  the  year  through,  but  in  winter  they 
have  to  be  fed  some  with  hay  and  oats  or  turnips. 
If  any  of  the  sheep  are  missing  after  a  storm,  the 
shepherds  go  out  and  poke  around  with  their  sticks 
in  the  spots  where  the  snow  is  deep,  and  when  they 
find  the  sheep  dig  them  out  with  shovels.  Usually 
the  unfortunates  are  discovered  under  the  shelter  of 
a  hedge  where  they  had  gone  for  protection  and  had 
been  drifted  over.  On  Exmoor  Forest  when  a  snow- 
storm threatens  the  shepherds  drive  the  sheep  to  the 
hilltops  where  the  snow  will  blow  off.  It  is  the  drifts 
that  are  dangerous. 

Mowing  in  these  Devon  valleys  is  all  done  by  hand. 
The  mowers  start  their  work  about  three  or  four  o'clock 
in  the  morning.  By  ten  the  dew  is  dried  off,  and  they 
stop  mowing,  spread  their  swaths  and  attend  to  the  hay 
cut  the  day  before.  Toward  six  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon the  men  begin  mowing  again,  and  keep  at  it  till 
ten,  or  in  good  weather  sometimes  till  after  midnight. 
The  partly  dried  hay  that  is  to  be  left  out  over  night 


J 28  Among  English  Hedgerows 

is  raked  up  in  little  "  rackrolls,"  or,  if  it  looks  rainy, 
is  stacked  in  "  pooks." 

A  farm  laborer's  daily  wage  in  this  district  is  two 
shillings  and  his  "  mate  "  (the  Devon  word  for  food). 
In  the  long  summer  days  a  man  can  earn  a  half  crown 
or  three  shillings  and  "  mate." 

Toward  noon  I  started  down  the  valley  and  left 
Malmsmead  and  the  Doone  country  behind,  but  not 
the  memory  of  them.  In  its  story  interest,  in  its  pic- 
turesque scenery,  and  in  the  glimpses  of  life  I  caught 
among  its  people,  I  nowhere  in  England  found  a  region 
more  enjoyable. 


XXIII 

THE    HOME    OF    KING    ARTHUR 

WHEN  I  left  the  Doone  country  I  continued 
along  the  Devon  coast  in  the  same  sort  of 
great  four-horse  coach  that  I  had  ridden 
on  in  the  journey  from  Minehead.  We  left  Lynton 
in  the  late  afternoon.  Passengers  were  few,  and  the 
guard  had  the  back  of  the  coach  to  himself.  That 
gave  him  elbow  room,  and  he  enlivened  all  the  way 
with  the  music  of  his  long  horn.  He  gave  a  warning 
every  time  we  approached  a  turn  in  the  road,  he  tooted 
when  we  were  to  meet  or  overtake  a  team  or  about  to 
enter  a  village,  he  sounded  various  notes  in  two  valleys 
which  sent  back  echoes,  he  blew  to  frighten  the  rab- 
bits we  saw  feeding  in  the  fields,  and  he  made  a  hoarse 
bellowing  noise  on  the  horn  as  a  salute  to  some  cattle 
feeding  in  a  pasture,  whereat  they  grew  very  frisky  and 
came  galloping  after  us  till  the  roadside  hedge  brought 
them  to  a  stand.  It  was  a  cold,  clouded  drive,  and  we 
were  all  thankful  when,  late  in  the  evening,  we  arrived 
at  Ilfracombe,  where  we  were  to  spend  the  night. 

329 


330  Among  English  Hedgerows 

Those  of  us  who  wished  to  go  farther  down  the  coast 
left  on  an  early  train  the  next  day  for  Bideford,  and 
there,  toward  noon,  we  took  a  coach  that  carried  us 
to  Clovelly.  The  Clovelly  coach  had  seventeen  pas- 
sengers on  its  top,  besides  the  driver  and  the  guard ; 
and  there  was  an  old  sailor  with  his  personal  effects 
tied  up  in  a  red  pocket-handkerchief  who  clung  to 
the  step  behind.  The  old  sailor  might  have  ridden 
inside  the  coach  had  it  not  been  that  the  space  there 
was  crammed  full  of  baggage. 

In  one  village  we  went  through  there  was  to  be  a 
wedding  that  day,  and  many  lines  full  of  flags  were 
hung  at  intervals  across  the  roadway ;  and,  at  the 
entrance  to  the  grounds  of  the  bride's  home  was  an 
arch  of  evergreens  and  flowers  with  a  great  red  paper 
poster  that  said,  "  God  bless  the  bride  and  bride- 
groom." It  was  a  marriage  among  the  gentry  and 
was  made  a  holiday  for  the  neighborhood.  There 
would  be  great  feasting  and  drinking  up  at  the  big 
house,  no  doubt,  later,  for  the  benefit  of  the  vil- 
lagers. 

About  one  o'clock  we  passed  a  schoolhouse,  and  a 
good  share  of  the  scholars  began  to  yell  and  run  after 
us  and  cling  to  the  coach  behind.  I  think  some  of 
them  followed  us  a  mile.  The  man  sitting  next  me 
was  much  interested,  and  said  it  was  a  great  thing  to 
have  young  ones  about  —  they  kept  you  amused  — 


A  Blind  Beggar  and  his  Companion 


The  Home  of  King  Arthur  ^^3 

and  he  got  out  a  penny  and  tossed  it  to  a  little  fellow 
whom  he  said  was  "a  proper  boy."  But  a  sharp-faced 
little  girl  was  too  quick  for  the  proper  boy  and  grabbed 
the  penny  first. 

The  man  who  furnished  the  penny  said  he  was  trav- 
elling for  his  health,  and  that  he  had  been  down  in 
middle  Devon.  "  They  are  the  most  ignorant  people 
there  I  ever  saw,"  said  he.  "  I  couldn't  stand  it.  I  had 
to  come  away.  They  called  everything  *  he '  except  an 
old  tomcat,  and  that  they  call  a  '  she.' " 

When  we  neared  Clovelly,  the  driver  pulled  in  his 
horses  and  informed  us  that  we  had  now  reached  the 
famous  "Hobby  Drive"  and  that  any  who  chose  could 
walk  down  it. 

I  was  one  of  those  who  chose,  and  I  paid  fourpence 
to  the  gateman  and  started  on  to  get  my  money's  worth. 
This  drive  was  built  by  a  rich  woman  of  the  neighbor- 
hood, who  took  a  fancy  to  the  idea  and  made  it  her 
hobby.  It  was  simply  a  roadway  cut  in  the  steep  hill- 
sides that  looked  out  on  the  sea  and  it  ran  around  all 
the  ridges  and  back  into  all  the  ravines,  and  all  the 
way  was  through  a  rather  uninteresting  wood.  A  two- 
mile-and-a-half  walk  brought  me  to  the  end  of  this  sort 
of  thing,  and  to  the  steep  cobbled  descent  that  led  to 
Clovelly. 

I  engaged  lodging  in  an  old  house  that  had  stair- 
ways in  it  more  twisted  and  narrow  and  liable  to  rap 


334 


Among  English   Hedgerows 


Clovelly 


one's  head,  than  any  I  had  ever  seen,  and  was  shown 
to  a  bare  Httle  bedroom  well  up  under  the  roof.  The 
house  stood  high  up  a  steep  ravine  and  when  I  looked 
out   I   saw  many  roofs  and  chimneys  descending  in 


The  Home  of  King  Arthur  335 

irregular  terraces  to  the  sea,  where  some  little  fishing- 
boats  were  beating  about  the  bay.  Far  off  were  foggy 
headlands  and  the  dim  horizon  line  of  the  ocean. 

I  fancy  Clovelly  is  as  queer  a  place  as  is  to  be  met 
with  in  Britain.  Its  houses  are  nearly  all  old,  with 
whitewashed  walls  for  the  prevailing  fashion  ia  exte- 
riors. I  do  not  think  the  place  could  be  said  to  have 
streets.  There  is  one  chief  highway  that  goes  by  a 
crooked,  uncertain  route  down  the  lowest  part  of  the 
hollow  in  which  the  hamlet  is  built,  and  there  are  vari- 
ous side  ways,  but  the  latter  are  hardly  more  than  paths 
that  lead  to  houses.  The  narrow  main  thoroughfare 
is  rudely  cobbled,  and  in  its  steeper  parts  is  laid  out 
in  long,  rough  steps.  You  never  see  carts  or  horses 
on  it.  The  tradesmen  deliver  their  goods  in  baskets, 
and  luggage  is  brought  down  the  hill  by  hand  or  on 
"slides."  A  slide  is  a  sort  of  framework  sled  with 
long  wooden  handles  projecting  from  the  front  like 
shafts.  A  man  gets  hold  of  these  handles  and  drags 
things  down  over  the  cobbles  by  main  force. 

A  good  deal  of  the  village  carrying  is  done  by  don- 
keys with  panniers  strapped  on  their  backs.  They  look 
very  sober  and  patient  and  hard-working.  It  is  the 
donkeys  that  convey  the  tourists'  trunks  and  boxes  up 
to  the  place  on  the  road  above  where  the  coach  starts. 
A  sort  of  wooden  staging  is  put  on  each  animal's  back 
and  then  the  luggage  is  piled  so  high  that  one  would 


23^  Among  English  Hedgerows 

think,  if  the  donkey  were  on  unpaved  ground,  the 
weight  would  sink  its  slender  legs  into  the  earth  up 
to  its  body. 

Down  at  the  shore  is  a  little  stone  quay  that,  hooks 
out  into  the  water  and  casts  a  protecting  arm  around 
the  fishing  craft  anchored  within  its  shelter.  Near  by 
on  a  bench,  under  the  walls  of  an  old  inn,  a  group  of 
ancient  sailors  was  always  sitting  every  time  I  visited 
that  vicinity,  and  they  looked  as  if  they  did  nothing 
else  the  year  through. 

I  would  as  soon  live  in  a  house  whose  rooms  were 
all  stairways,  as  in  a  village  like  Clovelly,  where  you 
never  can  go  anywhere  without  climbing  or  descending 
a  steep  hill.  It  was  a  sight  to  see  an  old  lady  come 
down  the  cobbled  street  on  a  donkey  one  morning. 
There  was  an  old  sailor  to  lead  the  donkey,  and  two 
other  men,  one  on  each  side,  to  bolster  the  rider  and 
see  that  she  did  not  tumble  off.  The  donkey  was  the 
most  self-contained  of  the  group,  though  he  looked 
badly  off  with  such  a  load. 

I  left  Clovelly  at  five  one  afternoon  for  an  eighteen- 
mile  ride  to  Bude.  The  sky  had  begun  to  cloud,  and 
the  weather  soon  grew  very  gloomy  and  windy  and 
cold.  Our  journey  was  much  of  the  way  across  sweep- 
ing upland  hills.  In  the  early  dusk  we  stopped  to 
change  horses  and  get  lunch  at  a  lonesome  little  stone 
dwelling  on  a  hilltop.     The  coach  passengers  crowded 


The  Home  of  King  Arthur 


337 


into  the  kitchen,  which  was  bright  as  could  oe,  with  its 
gay  display  of  colored  crockery  and  ornaments,  its 
brisk  fire  in  the  grate,  and  its  table  spread  with  a 
lunch  for  us  travellers.  The  bread  and  butter  and  the 
clotted  cream  and  jam  were  delightful.  There  were 
cakes  and  cookies,  besides,  and  tea  or  milk  to  drink  — 
and  the  charge  was  only  sixpence  apiece. 

After  a  night  at  Bude  we  went  on  by  coach  again, 


A  Village  in  Cornwall 


and  in  the  early  afternoon  arrived  at  Tintagel,  a  tree- 
less village  of  gray  stone  houses  on  the  shoulder  of  a 


22^  Among  English  Hedgerows 

great  bare  hill,  with  other  bare  hills,  cut  into  many 
little  fields  by  walls  and  hedges,  rolling  up  roundabout. 
The  notable  attraction  that  the  place  possesses  lies  in 
the  fact  that  here  was  born  the  great  King  Arthur, 
here  was  his  home,  and  here  his  chief  fighting-ground. 
Not  far  distant  on  the  cliffs  of  the  wild  coast  stood  his 
castle  where  gathered  the  knights  of  the  famous  Round- 
table.  Up  the  road  two  or  three  miles  from  Tintagel 
is  a  great  slab  of  stone  with  a  weight  of  several  tons, 
close  by  the  wheel-tracks,  that  is  known  as  King 
Arthur's  Kite.  The  story  is  that  King  Arthur  flew  the 
stone  over  in  the  form  of  a  kite  from  Ireland;  but  lest 
I  should  believe  this  myth,  the  old  man  who  trimmed 
the  grass  in  the  yard  of  my  hotel  warned  me  that  the 
story  was  all  "  bosh." 

As  soon  as  I  had  secured  a  room  at  the  "  King 
Arthur's  Arms  "  I  started  to  hunt  up  King  Arthur's 
castle.  I  left  the  town  behind  and  went  down  a  great, 
crooked  valley  walled  in  by  steep,  rugged  pasture  hills. 
At  the  end  of  this  valley,  near  the  sea,  was  a  small 
cottage  with  a  sign  on  it  that  said,  "  Get  the  key  to 
the  castle  here  —  Photographs  for  sale  —  Temperance 
drinks."  I  went  in  on  a  venture  and  invested  in  a 
temperance  drink  and  looked  at  the  photographs. 
Then  the  old  lady  and  the  middle-aged  lady  in  charge 
brought  out  the  key  to  the  castle  and  told  me  just 
how  to  put  it  in  the  lock  up  at  the  castle  gate  and 


The  Home  of  King  Arthur  339 

turn  it,  and  how  I  could  let  in  ladies,  but  no  men, 
and  must  take  the  key  out  and  lock  the  door  after 
me  when  I  went  in  and  carry  the  key  around  in  my 
pocket. 

The  path  to  the  castle  led  around  a  cliff  and  across 
a  narrow  peninsula  and  then  zigzagged  roughly  up  the 
face  of  a  great  precipice.  At  the  top  of  the  ascent 
were  some  ancient,  weather-worn  stone  walls,  turretted 
and  loopholed,  and  right  in  front  of  me  was  an  arched 
entrance  blocked  by  an  oaken  door.  My  key  let  me 
through  this  door,  and  I  found  myself  in  a  grassy 
field  inclosed  by  low  crumbling  walls.  Across  a 
chasm,  on  the  mainland,  were  other  remnants  of  walls 
that  have  been  separated  from  the  rest  by  landslides, 
caused  by  the  undermining  action  of  the  waves.  Other 
ruins  were  scattered  about  the  peninsula,  but  nowhere 
were  they  at  all  massive  or  conspicuous. 

The  peninsula  itself  was  rugged  and  high,  and  many 
acres  in  extent.  A  flock  of  sheep  was  pasturing  there, 
and  the  ground  was  bright  in  many  places  with  clumps 
of  sea-pinks.  The  waves  were  continually  foaming  at 
the  base  of  the  headland,  and  the  rocks  were  very 
ragged  and  hollowed  into  many  huge  caverns.  When- 
ever I  approached  the  edge  of  the  precipices,  I  would 
startle  the  jackdaws  from  their  crannies,  and  numbers 
of  sea-gulls  would  fly  out  from  the  face  of  the  clifl^s 
and  would  soar  and  hover  about  and  scream  till  I  went 


340  Among  English  Hedgerows 

away.  The  day  was  not  at  all  cheerful.  The  «ky 
was  full  of  clouds  and  flying  mists  through  which 
stole,  at  intervals,  pale  gleams  of  sunshine.  The  sea 
was  mottled  with  the  glistening  patches  of  light  mov- 


The  Remains  of  King  Arthur's  Castle 

ing  across  its  general  gray,  and  often  these  oases  of 
light  on  the  water  seemed  to  promise  that  the  day  was 
brightening,  but  it  never  did.  I  lingered  for  a  long 
time  about  the  high  cliffs  and  deep  ravines  in  the  castle 
neighborhood  and,  not  till  the  evening  dusk  was  deep- 
ening into  night,  did  I  return  to  my  stopping-place. 


The  Home  of  King  Arthur  341 

I  was  none  too  soon,  for  almost  immediately  after- 
ward the  cloud  mists  drooped  low  over  the  hills  and 
it  began  to  rain. 

Next  day  I  wandered  about  the  castle  region  again 
and  spent  some  time  in  one  of  the  caves  that  the  sea 
has  hollowed  deep  under  the  old  ruins  that  crown  the 
cliffs  far  above.  This  particular  cave  went  clear 
through  the  neck  of  the  castle  peninsula,  and  as  I  sat 
near  its  northern  end,  amid  the  stones  and  seaweeds 
still  wet  with  a  recent  high  tide,  I  could  hear  the 
waves  continually  surging  in  at  the  southern  entrance 
with  a  hollow  roaring  like  distant  thunder.  Once  in  a 
while  there  would  come  an  intonation  of  a  breaking 
wave  so  loud  that  I  would  prepare  to  get  out  in  the 
fear  of  being  inundated.  These  proved  to  be  false 
alarms,  but  the  cavern  was  too  chilly  and  damp  to 
make  it  desirable  quarters  for  long,  and  I  was  content 
to  leave  it  presently  and  climb  to  the  upland. 

A  quarter  of  a  mile  from  the  castle  is  Tintagel  church 
off  on  a  flat  hilltop  all  by  itself  with  no  houses  or  trees 
anywhere  near.  Immediately  about  it  is  a  large  church- 
yard set  full  of  gray  slabs  of  slate  and  surrounded  by  a 
grim  stone  wall.  This,  with  the  many  other  stone  walls 
of  the  vicinity  hemming  in  the  roadways  and  bounding 
the  fields,  made  the  scene  barren  and  lonely  to  the  last 
degree.  1  never  saw  a  church  with  a  more  forbidding 
environment. 


34^  Among  English  Hedgerows 

After  seeing  Tintagel  I  went  by  carriage  to  Camel- 
ford,  and  thence  continued  by  train  to  Okehampton,  a 
good-sized  village  on  the  edge  of  Dartmoor  Forest. 
I  arrived  at  the  latter  place  just  in  time  to  see  a  Salva- 
tion Army  group  beginning  to  hold  forth  on  the  chief 
town  street.  The  Salvation  soldiers  were  standing  in 
a  circle,  and,  one  at  a  time,  they  stepped  into  the  middle 
of  the  ring  and  made  their  appeal.  They  shouted  at  the 
top  of  their  voices,  but,  even  then,  unless  you  stood 
very  near  you  could  not  hear  what  they  said.  Only  a 
thin  row  of  lookers-on  standing  on  the  sidewalk  curb- 
ing, paid  any  attention  to  them.  People  sauntered  up 
and  down  the  pavements,  went  into  the  shops  and  came 
out,  children  played,  and  small  boys  blew  their  whistles, 
and  a  man  not  far  off  with  a  little  cart  had  gathered  to 
him  the  larger  part  of  the  street  loiterers,  by  his  praises 
of  a  silver  polish  whose  virtues  he  was  illustrating. 
Such  evening  scenes  I  often  saw,  for  the  army  has  its 
little  band  of  soldiers  in  every  English  village  of  any 
size. 

In  the  early  morning  of  the  day  following  I  went 
for  a  long  walk  over  Dartmoor.  I  had  only  to  climb 
the  hill  that  swept  far  up  back  of  the  village  to  enter 
at  once  on  characteristic  moorland.  It  lay  before  me 
as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach,  a  waste  of  black  stony 
hills  heaving  up  mountain  high  about  the  wide  and 
hardly  less  bare  and  rocky  valleys.     No  dwellings  and 


The  Home  of  King  Arthur  345 

no  trees  or  bushes  broke  its  monotony,  and  the  only 
life  to  be  seen  was  scattered  groups  of  horses,  sheep, 
or  cattle.  In  the  hollows  were  brooks,  and  on  the 
hill  summits  shattered  cliffs  of  granite  that  looked  like 
ancient  ruins. 

After  penetrating  far  enough  into  Dartmoor  to  get 
some  idea  of  its  nature,  I  returned  to  Okehampton  and 
took  a  train  that  by  night  had  carried  me  clear  across 
the  southern  counties  of  the  kingdom  to  the  east  coast, 
and  this  brought  my  touring  to  a  close.  It  was  the 
longest  uninterrupted  trip  I  had  made,  but  not  the  less 
pleasant  on  that  account.  A  railroad  journey  in  Eng- 
land seems  to  give  a  much  more  attractive  view  of  the 
country  traversed  than  a  like  journey  on  American  rail- 
roads. The  garden-like  aspect  of  the  country  is  always 
apparent,  and  it  begins  at  once  with  the  hedgerows  that 
separate  the  narrow  ribbon  of  railroad  property  from 
the  private  domains  beyond. 

If  one  can  choose,  I  think  the  outlook  from  the  car 
window  is  finest  in  early  June.  Every  field  then  is 
besprinkled  with  blossoms,  and  they  grow  in  starry 
constellations  in  every  hedgerow.  In  some  places  the 
flowers  are  present  in  such  multitude  that  it  seems  as 
if  the  blossoming  masses  on  the  high  banks  by  the 
railroad  must  be  jarred  loose  and  come  tumbling  down 
on  the  train. 

But  whether  seen  in  June  or  some  other  month  the 


346 


Among  English  Hedgerows 


country  is  delightful  always.       It  looks  as  if  it  had 
passed  the  raw  stage  —  as  if  wild  nature  was  tamed  to 


An  English  Wood 

a  park-like  submission.  I  almost  never  saw  any  land 
unreclaimed  or  even  crudely  cultivated.  The  fields 
were  all  smooth,  and  the  woodlands,  too,  appeared  to 
have  care  and  did  not  grow  in  random  tangles.  Where 
a  patch  of  wood  was  cut  oft',  the  ground  was  cleared 
afterward  and  not  left  a  brushy  devastation  to  start 


The  Home  of  King  Arthur  347 

again  as  chance  willed.  Great  numbers  of  sheep, 
horses,  and  cows  are  seen  feeding  in  the  clean,  well- 
grassed  fields.  I  doubt  if  there  could  be  found  any- 
where between  John  o'Groat's  House  and  Land's  End 
a  pasture  of  the  scrubby,  weedy,  barren-soiled  sort 
we  are  so  familiar  with  in  New  England.  The  whole 
English  country  impresses  the  traveller  deeply  with 
its  quiet  pastoral  beauty,  and  one  feels  that  Nature 
on  this  island  is  a  lavish  mother.  It  seemed  to  me 
that  any  man  to  whom  England  had  once  been  home 
must  always  love  it  and  always  feel  a  longing  home- 
sickness when  away  from  it.  The  land  is  one  that 
readily  wins  the  affections  of  strangers  from  across  the 
seas,  and  however  often  they  visit  it,  they  always  have 
the  hope  to  see  it  yet  once  more. 


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